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IN  THE  PATH  OF  THE  ALPHABET. 


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IN  THE  PATH  OF 
THE  ALPHABET 


AN  HISTORICAL  ACCOUNT  OF  THE 
ANCIENT  BEGINNINGS  AND  EVOLU- 
TION  OF   THE   MODERN   ALPHABET 


BY  FRANCES   D.    JERMAIN 


FORT  WAYNE,   IND. 

WILLIAM   D.    PAGE,    PUBLISHER 

1906 


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Copyright,  1906 

By  S.  P.  JERMAIN 

Published  in  December 


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PREFACE. 


In  one  of  the  closing  days  of  August,  1905,  the 
author  of  this  work,  Frances  D.  Jermain,  received 
the  summons  of  her  Maker  to  join  the  Silent  Major- 
ity. The  call  came  suddenly,  finding  her  in  the 
full  possession  of  her  ever  remarkable  intellectual 
powers,  and  with  the  ambition  for  much  yet  to  do. 

For  nearly  twenty-five  years,  she  had  been  at  the 
head  of  the  Toledo  Public  Library,  in  the  upbuilding 
of  which  she  was  ever  the  inspiration  and  the  guid- 
ing spirit. 

With  more  than  the  ordinary  capacity  for  organi- 
zation and  the  practical,  she  planned  and  carried  out 
the  working  details  of  all  notable  improvements,  in 
that  thoroughly  modern  library. 

Others,  who  took  up  the  work  from  which  she  re- 
tired about  a  year  before  her  death,  will  carry  it  for- 
ward with  that  devotion  and  capacity  which  it  should 
inspire;  but  they  will  but  build  additions  to  the  edi- 
fice which  she  reared. 

Her  death  brought  forth  a  remarkable  outpouring 
of  voluntary  tributes  to  her  worth  and  work.  From 
these  has  come  the  realization  that  by  her  death 
Toledo  has  lost  one  whose  influence  upon  its  intel- 
lectual life  was  the  most  potent  and  far  reaching  of 
any  citizen  it  has  ever  lost. 

Living  and  working  nobly  in  public  as  in  her 
ideally  perfect  domestic  life,  her  loss  is  profoundly 
felt. 


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Political  administrations  came  and  went,  party 
triumphs  and  party  defeats  lived  out  "their  little 
day  ' '  and  are  long  since  forgot ;  but  year  after 
year,  until  a  quarter  of  a  century  had  nearly  gone, 
this  brave  and  learned  little  woman  ruled,  with 
gentle  power  and  kindly  wisdom,  the  destinies  of 
the  Toledo  Public  Library. 

In  the  growth  and  development  of  this  notable 
public  institution,  selecting  its  contents,  the  literary 
advisor  of  lawyers,  journalists,  educators  and  stu- 
dents, she  acquired,  with  her  discriminating  judg- 
ment and  retentive  memory,  a  remarkable  knowl- 
edge of  the  contents  of  books.  A  subject  practically 
never  arose  upon  which  she  could  not  at  once  give, 
either  the  needed  reference  or  the  full  information 
required,  and  the  library  contained  seventy  thousand 
volumes  ! 

In  this  reference  work,  she  became  deeply  im- 
pressed with  the  need  of  a  concise  history  of  the  be- 
ginnings and  development  of  our  modern  alphabet. 

The  information  on  the  subject  was  widely  scat- 
tered and  very  great.  It  was  found  nowhere  in  a 
condensed  and  yet  adequate  form.  She  knew  from 
experience  what  the  value  to  libraries,  educators 
and  students  generally,  a  concise  history  upon  the 
subject  would  be. 

This  she  undertook  and  finally  completed.  Not 
confining  her  account  to  information  gathered  from 
works  already  published  dealing  with  the  subject, 
she  kept  in  constant  correspondence  with  the  lead- 
ing archaeologists  carrying  on  researches  in  both 
Egypt  and  the  valley  of  the  Tigris  and  Euphrates. 

Thus  she  literally  walked  with  these  great  scholars 
11  In  the  Path  of  the  Alphabet,"  and  her  work  took 
on  that  original  and  valuable  character  based  upon 
those  most  recent  and  wonderful  discoveries  which 


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have  forever    silenced    the   voice  of    "The  Higher 
Criticism." 

This  work,  which  we  now  reverently  give  to  pub- 
lic print,  is  therefore  based  upon  her  broad  and 
deep  knowledge  upon  the  subject— from  original 
sources ;  a  work  of  patient  labor  ;  of  a  profound 
Christian  faith  ;  a  work  begun  and  finished  in  that 
spirit  by  which  alone  the  best  work  of  God's  laborers 
needs  must  be  done. 

Upon  her  behalf,  grateful  acknowledgment  is  here 
made  to  Professor  A.  H.  Sayce,  Professor  H.  V. 
Hilprecht,  Professor  James  A.  Craig  and  Profes- 
sor C.  R.  Condor,  who  walked  with  her  "In  the 
Path  of  the  Alphabet." 

S.  P.  J. 

Toledo,  Ohio,  December,  1906. 


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CONTENTS. 

CHAP.  PAGE. 

I.  Egyptian  Hieroglyphics,      .        9 

II.  Cuneiform  Inscriptions,    .  21 

III.  Phonetism,       .         .         .         .27 

IV.  Syllabism, 
V.  Archaic  Libraries, 

VI.  The  Chaldean  Field, 

VII.  Mesopotamian  Influence, 

VIII.  Babylonian  Contributions, 

IX.  The  Tel-el-Amarna  Letters, 

X.  Proto-Medic  Alphabet, 

XI.  Zoroaster  and  Mahomet, 


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ILLUSTRATIONS. 

Mrs.  Frances  D.  Jermain,  .  Frontispiece 
The  Rosetta  Stone,  .  .  Opp.  Page  9 
Hieratic  and  Hierogyphic  Writings,  20 

Cuneiform  Vowels  and  Consonants,  26 

Form  of  Rebus  Script,       ...  34 

Hieroglyphic  and  Hieratic  Figures,  "  40 
Hieroglyphic  Translation,         .         .  54 

Hieroglyphic  Hymn  of  Praise,  .  .  '  66 
Hieroglyphic  Signs  and  Equivalents,  98 

Hieroglyphs  and  Translation,       .       .   "   112 


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CHAPTER  I. 

'F  all  the  splendid  achievements  of 
archaeological  research  during  the 
present  century,  there  are  none  of 
more  universal  interest  and  importance  than 
those  which  are  revealing  the  origin  and  his- 
tory of  letters;  this,  not  alone  for  the  historic 
values  of  these  discoveries,  for  their  illumina- 
tion of  a  past  of  which  hitherto  there  was  but 
a  faint  conception;  but  also  for  what  letters 
have  to  tell  us  in  explanation  or  confirmation 
of  Biblical  narrative,  of  their  bearing  upon 
our  most  sacred  beliefs. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  present  century  the 
great  mass  of  testimony  now  laid  open  before 
us  was  an  apparently  impenetrable  mystery. 
Egyptian  hieroglyphics  and  cuneiform  inscrip- 
tions yet  remained,  for  the  most  part,  but 
confusion  of  ornament  and  meaningless  signs. 
Some  little  advance,  it  is  true,  had  been  reached 
during  the  latter  part  of  the  eighteenth  centu- 
ry, as  to  the  signification  of  certain  hiero- 
glyphic characters,  but  these  were  as  yet  but 
conjecture;  a  groping  in  the  dark,  with  no 
means  to  verify,  uncertain,  unassured. 


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With  the  opening  of  the  present  century  two 
events  occurred  which  were  to  place  in  the 
hands  of  scholars  the  keys  to  these  mysteries. 
The  first  in  date  of  these  discoveries,  though 
not  in  results,  was  the  finding  of  the  Rosetta 
Stone  in  1799. 

This  was  an  outcome  of  the  French  scientific 
expedition  to  Egypt  under  the  first  Napoleon. 
At  this  date,  a  French  artillery  officer,  named 
Boussard,  while  digging  among  some  ruins  at 
Fort  St.  Julian,  near  Rosetta,  discovered  a  large 
stone,  of  black  basalt,  covered  with  inscriptions. 
This  tablet,  now  known  as  "The  Rosetta 
Stone, ' '  was  of  irregular  shape,  portions  having 
been  broken  from  the  top  and  sides.  The  in- 
scriptions were  in  three  kinds  of  writing;  the 
upper  text  in  hieroglyphic  characters,  the  sec- 
ond in  a  later  form  of  Egyptian  writing,  called 
enchorial  or  demotic,  and  the  third  was  in 
Greek.  No  one  of  these  had  been  entirely  pre- 
served. Of  the  hieroglyphic  text,  a  consider- 
able portion  was  lacking;  perhaps  thirteen  or 
fourteen  lines  at  the  beginning.  From  the 
demotic,  the  ends  of  about  half  the  lines  were 
lost,  while  the  Greek  text  was  nearly  perfect, 
with  the  exception  of  a  few  words  at  the  end. 

The  immediate  inferences  were  that  these 
three  inscriptions  were  but  different  forms  of 
the  same  decree,  and  that  in  the  Greek  would 
be  found  some  clew  for  the  decipherment  of  the 


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others.  It  was  first  presented  to  the  French 
Institute  at  Cairo  where  it  was  destined  not 
long  to  remain. 

The  surrender  of  Alexandria  to  the  British, 
in  1801,  placed  the  Rosetta  Stone,  by  the  terms 
of  the  treaty,  in  the  hands  of  the  British  Com- 
missioner. This  gentleman,  himself  a  zealous 
scholar  and  keenly  alive  to  the  importance  of 
the  treasure,  at  once  dispatched  it  to  England, 
where  it  was  presented  by  George  III  to  the 
British  Museum. 

A  fac  simile  of  the  inscriptions  was  made  in 
1802,  by  the  ''Society  of  Antiquaries,"  of  Lon- 
don, and  copies  were  soon  distributed  among 
the  scholars  of  Europe.  When  the  Greek  in- 
scription was  read,  it  was  found  to  be  a  decree 
by  the  priests  of  Memphis  in  honor  of  King 
Ptolemy  Epiphanes;  B.  C.  198; 

That,  in  acknowledgment  of  many  and  great 
benefits  conferred  upon  them  by  this  king,  they 
had  ordered  this  decree  should  be  engraved 
upon  a  tablet  of  hard  stone  in  hieroglyphic,  en- 
chorial and  Greek  characters;  the  first,  the 
writing  sacred  to  the  priests;  the  second,  the 
language  or  script  of  the  people,  and  the  third 
that  of  the  Greeks,  their  rulers. 

Also,  that  this  decree,  so  engraved,  should 
be  set  up  in  the  temples  of  the  first,  second  and 
third  orders,  near  the  image  of  the  ever  living 
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It  might  be  supposed  that  with  this  clew  the 
work  of  decipherment  would  be  readily  accom- 
plished. On  the  contrary,  many  of  the  most 
distinguished  scholars  of  Europe  tried,  during 
the  twenty  following  years,  without  success. 

The  chief  obstacle  in  the  way  was  the  pre- 
vailing opinion  that  the  pictorial  forms  of  Egyp- 
tian hieroglyphs  were  mainly  ideographic  sym- 
bols of  things.  In  consequence,  the  absurd 
conceptions  read  into  these  characters,  led  all 
who  attempted  the  decipherment  of  these  far 
away  from  the  truth. 

It  is  true  that  Zoega,  a  Danish  archaeologist, 
and  Thomas  Young,  an  English  scholar,  each 
independently,  about  1787,  had  made  the  dis- 
covery that  the  hieroglyphs  in  the  ovals  repre- 
sented royal  names,  and  were  perhaps  alpha- 
betic; but  the  signification  of  these  characters 
were  never  fully  comprehended  by  either  of 
these  great  scholars. 

The  claim  made  by  the  friends  of  Mr.  Young 
as  the  first  discoverer  of  the  true  methods  of 
decipherment,  rests  upon  the  fact  that  he  gave 
the  true  phonetic  values  to  five  of  these  charac- 
ters in  the  spelling  of  the  names  of  certain  royal 
personages,  and  in  1819  published  an  article 
announcing  this  discovery.  He  seems,  however, 
to  have  had  so  little  confidence  in  this  concep- 
tion that  he  went  no  farther  with  it,  and  still 
later,  in  1823,  lost  the  prestige  he  might  have 


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gained,  by  the  publication  as  his  belief,  that 
the  Egyptians  never  made  use  of  signs  to  ex- 
press sound  until  the  time  of  the  Roman  and 
Greek  invasions  of  Egypt. 

The  real  work  of  decipherment  was  reserved 
for  Champollion,  who,  born  at  Grenoble,  in 
1790,  was  but  nine  years  old  when  the  famous 
stone  was  discovered  which  later  on  was  to 
yield  to  him  the  long  lost  language  of  the  hier- 
oglyphs. 

Among  the  characters  on  the  Rosetta  Stone, 
in  the  hieroglyphic  text,  were  to  be  found  cer- 
tain pictorial  forms  enclosed  in  an  oval.  It 
had  hitherto  been  suggested  that  these  ovals 
contained  characters  signifying  royal  names. 
Were  these  symbolic  signs,  or  how  were  they 
to  be  interpreted?  Champollion  concluded  that 
some  of  these  signs  expressed  sound  and  were 
alphabetic  in  character.  Thus,  if  the  signs  in 
the  cartouche  supposed  to  signify  Ptolemy, 
could  be  found  to  be  identical,  letter  for  letter, 
with  the  Ptolemaios  of  the  Greek  inscription, 
an  important  proof  would  be  obtained.  It  so 
happened  that  on  an  obelisk  found  at  Philae 
there  was  a  hieroglyphic  inscription,  which, 
according  to  a  Greek  text  on  the  same  shaft 
should  be  that  of  Cleopatra.  If,  then,  the 
signs  for  P,  t  and  /  in  Ptolemaios  corresponded 
with  the  signs  for/,  t  and  /  in  Cleopatra,  the 
identity  of  these  as  alphabetic  signs  would  be 


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confirmed.  The  comparison  fully  justified  his 
theory,  and  further  confirmation  was  supplied 
by  further  comparisons,  until  he  finally  came 
into  possession  of  hieroglyphic  signs  for  all  the 
consonants. 

Again  ;  certain  indications  convinced  him 
that  these  characters  appearing  in  proper  names 
must  be  also  initial  letters  or  initial  sounds  of 
Egyptian  words  of  which  these  signs  were  the 
pictorial  representations.  If  this  was  so,  the 
sign  for  the  letter  Z,,  which  in  the  royal  names 
was  the  picture  of  a  lion,  must  be  the  begin- 
ning of  some  word  signifying  "lion,"  which 
in  old  Egyptian  would  begin  with  the  letter  or 
or  first  syllabic  sound  of  L . 

The  pictorial  sign  for  the  letter  R  was  the 
mouth.  The  word  for  mouth,  then,  in  Egyp- 
tian must  begin  with  the  letter  or  syllabic  sign 
for  R,  and  so  forth. 

The  early  opportunities  which  Champollion 
had  enjoyed  for  the  preparation  of  his  great 
work  were  peculiarly  significant.  He  was  ed- 
ucated by  his  elder  brother,  a  man  of  great 
learning,  professor  of  Greek  in  the  Academy 
of  Grenoble,  whose  companionship  early  influ- 
enced the  direction  of  his  younger  brother  to 
linguistic  studies.  In  addition  to  this,  the  in- 
tense interest  aroused  throughout  Europe  by 
the  vast  collection  of  antiquities  brought  thith- 
er by  the  men  of  letters  and  science  who  ac- 


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companied  Napoleon's  army  in  Egypt,  had 
compelled  the  attention  of  scholars  to  this  spe- 
cial field  of  research  as  never  before. 

With  this  guidance,  and  moved  by  the  spirit 
of  the  times,  Champollion's  studies  in  ancient 
Greek  led  him  to  an  early  acquaintance  with 
the  Coptic  language.  It  is  said  that,  as  a  re- 
sult of  this  study,  at  the  age  of  sixteen  he  read 
a  paper  before  his  academy,  maintaining  that 
the  Coptic  was  the  language  of  the  ancient 
Egyptians.  This  is  not  now  a  spoken  lan- 
guage, having  been  supplanted  by  the  Arabic 
since  the  seventeenth  century,  A.  D.  It,  how- 
ever, survives  in  the  sen- ice  ritual  of  the  Cop- 
tic churches  of  to-day,  and,  though  written  in 
old  Greek  characters,  the  ancient  language  is 
still  heard,  though  but  few  understand  it. 

As  Champollion  made  use  of  his  hieroglyph- 
ic alphabet  for  the  spelling  of  other  words  than 
proper  names,  his  satisfaction  may  be  imagined 
when  he  found  that  these  were  Coptic  words. 
Thus,  the  sign  for  "mouth"  for  the  letter  R, 
was  the  initial  letter  or  syllabic  sign  of  the  Cop- 
tic word  Ro,  signifying  mouth.  The  picture 
of  a  lion  for  the  letter  L  also  represented  the 
initial  letter  or  initial  syllable  of  Lavo,  the  Cop- 
tic for  lion.  The  picture  of  an  eagle,  repre- 
senting the  sign  for  the  letter  A ,  is  also  the 
sign  for  the  initial  sound  or  letter  in  Ahem, 
the  Coptic  for  eagle,  and  so  on. 


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The  language,  then,  of  the  Hieroglyphs  was 
Coptic,  or  rather  in  the  Coptic  we  have  a  sur- 
vival of  the  ancient  Egyptian,  the  language  of 
the  pyramid  builders.  More  correctly  speak- 
ing, it  is  the  Egyptian  language  of  the  Ptole- 
maic period,  corrupted  with  Arabic  and  Greek 
idioms,  but  still  including  the  language  of  old 
Egypt. 

It  was,  indeed,  a  thing  which  might  have 
been  expected,  that  the  language  expressed 
by  the  ancient  Hieroglyphs  should  bear  a 
resemblance  to  Coptic,  but  that  the  resemblance 
should  be  as  close  as  it  has  proved  could  scarce- 
ly have  been  expected. 

Again,  of  special  interest  in  this  connection, 
is  the  fact  that  in  the  Greek  the  writing  and 
language  of  Egypt  should  be  thus  preserved . 

*  ' '  The  romance  of  language  .could  go  no 
further,"  says  Mr.  Butler,  "  than  to  join  the 
speech  of  Pharaoh  and  the  writing  of  Homer 
in  the  service  book  of  an  Egyptian  Christian." 

At  this  point,  a  brief  reference,  bridging  the 
centuries  from  the  decline  of  the  use  of  hiero- 
glyphics to  the  later  appearance  of  the  lan- 
guage in  its  Coptic  and  Greek  forms,  should 
have  a  place. 

The  extensive  use  of  Phoenician  and  Greek 
alphabets  in  Egypt  and  throughout  the  Orient, 
for  some  centuries   before  the  Christian  era, 


*  Ancient  Coptic  Churches  of  Egypt.    Vol.  II.    P.  47. 


"pi  $BEf  ATH  <QF  tHE  AlFHABET 


had  affected  the  Egytian  script  as  a  social  and 
commercial  medium.  The  hieroglyphics,  how- 
ever, held  their  own  with  the  priesthood,  for 
sacred  and  secular  uses,  until  the  time  of  the 
Emperor  Trajanus  Decius,  249-252,  A.  D., 
which  is  the  latest  period  in  which  we  find 
them  employed  for  monumental  purposes. 

A  little  over  a  century  later, — with  the  spread 
of  Christianity,  the  decline  of  paganism,  the 
destruction  of  the  Egyptian  temples  and  the 
dispersion  of  the  priesthood  under  the  Emperor 
Theodosius, — the  interpretation  of  the  hiero- 
glyphics was  gradually  lost,  not  again  to  be 
read  and  understood  until  the  discovery  and 
interpretation  of  the  Rosetta  Stone. 

In  1822  Champollion  announced  the  results 
of  his  studies  to  the  '  'Academy  of  Inscriptions' ' 
of  Paris,  and  followed  this  by  the  publication 
of  his  work  on  the  "  Hieroglyphic  System  of 
the  Ancient  Egyptians, ' '  in  which  he  discussed 
the  proofs  that  the  phonetic  alphabet  wras  used 
in  the  royal  legends  of  all  ages  and  is  the  key 
to  the  whole  hieroglyphic  system. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  those  who  before 
Champollion  had  undertaken  the  decipherment 
of  the  Egyptian  hieroglyphics,  had  based  their 
efforts  on  the  theory  that  these  signs  were 
mainly  ideographic.  With  this  as  a  working 
theory,  all  advance  wras  impossible.  Champol- 
lion, on   the  contrary,  finding  the    Egyptian 


"-^,r\n. 


<Zr^ 


J 


17 


;j^^E  PATHpFXHE^LrH^BE 


Tr 


1 


<-*»- 


.    ~-<>^ 


system  including  a  phonetic  structure,  made 
this  a  basis  for  research,  achieving  a  brilliant 
success.  He  never  fully  recognized  the  com- 
posite character  of  these  phonetic  signs.  From 
these  he  constructed  an  alphabet  of  nearly  two 
hundred  signs,  to  which  his  pupil,  Salvolini, 
added  one  hundred  more,  thus  producing  an 
alphabet  of  nearly  three  hundred  characters. 
As  Lepsius  was  to  show  a  little  later,  while 
these  signs  are  all  phonetic,  only  a  small  num- 
ber— thirty-four  in  all — are  alphabetic,  the  re- 
mainder representing  syllables. 

It  is  impossible,  in  this  brief  survey,  to  refer 
to  the  special  advancements  made  by  other 
distinguished  scholars  in  this  field  of  research. 
Since  the  death  of  Champollion  the  work  of 
decipherment  has  progressed  steadily  on  until 
the  life,  the  literature  and  the  language  of  the 
old  Egyptians  are  open  pages  which  all  may 
read. 

There  are, however,  many  things  not  yet  fully 
understood.  Of  the  Rosetta  Stone,  two  of 
the  texts  may  now  be  said  to  be  fully  translated; 
namely,  the  Greek  and  the  hieroglyphic.  This 
has  not  been  possible  until  recently ,  in  conse- 
quence of  the  mutilated  condition  of  the  tablet, 
a  considerable  portion  of  the  hieroglyphic  text 
and  part  of  the  demotic,  being  included  in  the 
fragment  broken  off  and  lost.  Not  long  ago, 
however,  another  stele  was  found  at  En  Nobe- 

r 


$N  ;±HE3PATH  0r$HE^XFHIVBET 


ira,  near  Dammamour,  containing  a  duplicate 
copy  of  the  Rosetta  texts  in  perfect  condition. 
This  is  now  in  the  museum  at  Boulak. 

The  demotic  text  has  never  yet  been  fully 
translated.  This  writing  is  a  cursive  script, 
developed  from  the  hieratic  to  express  the 
vulgar  dialect  spoken  by  the  people.  As 
hieratic  bears  the  same  relation  to  hieroglyphic 
that  ordinary  writing  does  to  printing,  so  the 
demotic,  which  is  a  further  abridgment  of  the 
hieratic,  is  compared  to  the  latter  as  bearing 
the  same  relation  which  short-hand  does  to 
writing.  Some  of  these  latent  signs  have  been 
identified,  but  not  all. 


**> 


V 


(^~~:Z%l!& 


«v 


**~S^ 


-'*rtfe 


n 


pi±nz  ;fath  of  jimtisrsiiRszTf 


The  first  five  lines  of  a  Papyrus  (containing  75  lines),  being 
the  beginning  of  an  ancient  hymn  addressed  to  the  Deity,  are 
added  in  the  original  Hieratic,  with  the  transcription  in  Hiero- 
glyphic characters.  The  Hieratic  is  read  from  right  to  left,  the 
Hieroglyphic  from  left  to  right.  The  dots  in  the  middle  or 
end  of  the  lines,  written  in  red  ink  in  the  original  manuscript, 
indicate  that  thifi  is  a  poetic  composition 


♦^ 


uzm&tk 


tvyj 


-^H&Wvl 


*-T 


"m  $HE  #ATH  ©r  jHBjraLFHnBET  ♦ 


CHAPTER  II. 

^r°(|>^'HE  other  event  referred  to,  which  was 
to  open  to  scholars  another  field  of 
research,  in  interest  and  importance 
equal  to  the  Egyptian  discoveries,  was  the  work 
of  Grotefend,  early  in  the  century,  in  the  de- 
cipherment of  cuneiform  inscriptions. 

In  many  parts  of  Persia,  there  are  to  be  found 
engraved  upon  the  native  rocks,  or  upon  ruined 
temples,  inscriptions  in  peculiar  characters. 
These  characters  are  called  cuneiform,  because 
they  are  made  up  from  combinations  of  a  single 
sign  resembling  the  head  of  an  arrow  or  a  thin 
wedge.  This  sign  was  formed  in  three  ways, 
either  horizontal,  — ;  vertical,  ';  or  angular,  <. 
From  these  primary  signs,  a  great  variety  of 
combinations  appear,  either  in  groups  or  form- 
ing single  characters. 

In  the  latter  part  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
fragments  of  these  inscriptions,  and  copies  of 
others,  had  found  their  way  to  Europe  and  into 
the  hands  of  scholars.  Although  some  of  the 
most  powerful  intellects  of  Europe  had  attempt- 
ed their  interpretation,  but  little,  if  any  pro- 
gress had  been  made  until  the  beginning  of  the 
past  century. 


K> 


iJLNftHE  pfarxn  pFrtHBALTHKBX': 


^^^ 


/ 


In  the  year  1802,  Grotefend,  then  a  young 
student  in  the  University  of  Bonn,  announced 
to  his  colleagues  his  success  in  the  decipher- 
ment of  a  trilingual  inscription  copied  by  Nie- 
buhr  from  the  ruins  of  a  royal  palace  at  Per- 
sepolis.  It  will  be  remembered  that  this  young 
scholar  had  no  Rosetta  Stone,  with  an  inscrip- 
tion in  a  known  language  to  indicate  either 
subject  or  language;  simply  the  strange  com- 
binations of  these  singular  signs. 

The  inscriptions  were  in  three  different  sys- 
tems of  assortment  of  the  elemental  signs,  evi- 
dently representing  three  different  languages, 
and  as  they  were  placed  side  by  side,  it  was  also 
evident  that  they  were  three  versions  of  the 
same  decree,  or  record  of  the  same  event.  One 
of  the  versions,  which  always  came  first,  was 
simpler  than  the  others.  This  consisted  of 
about  forty  signs,  while  the  others  were  more 
complicated  and  numerous.  Again,  in  this 
version  the  groups  of  signs,  which  evidently 
formed  words,  were  separated,  each  from  the 
other,  by  a  slanting  wedge  which  did  not  ap- 
pear in  the  others. 

Grotefend  also  observed  that  each  inscription 
usually  began  with  a  certain  group  of  words. 
One  of  these  words,  on  different  inscriptions, 
varied,  while  the  other  words  of  this  group 
remained  the  same.  By  a  happy  guess,  he 
conceived    these    groups    to   be  royal    names 


Tvmt  s 

mr~wt 


ATNCMfll 


!fjV  $HE# ATH  t)F  :±HEJ^LFHJ\BET  ♦ 


and  titles,  the  words  which  varied  on  the  dif- 
ferent inscriptions  to  be  names  of  different 
kings,  while  the  words  which  always  continued 
the  same  in  these  groups  were  their  titles. 
Upon  this  basis  he  began  his  work. 

It  was  known  to  scholars  that  certain  Ach- 
aemenian  princes — Darius  and  his  successors — 
had  erected  some  of  the  monuments  from  which 
copies  of  the  inscriptions  were  taken.  Turning 
then  to  the  older  Persian  language,  of  the  time 
of  Darius,  for  the  spelling  of  the  name  of  this 
king,  he  gave  alphabetic  values  to  certain  of 
these  signs  which  he  supposed  might  spell  the 
name  of  Darius.  Also,  to  the  words  which  he 
supposed  represented  the  titles  of  this  king. 
These  alphabetic  values  were  based  upon  the 
spelling  of  the  name  and  titles  in  the  ancient 
Zend.  In  this  way  he  obtained  supposed  val- 
ues of  six  letters  in  the  cuneiform.  He  then 
turned  to  another  royal  name  which  might  be 
Xerxes.  The  name  of  Darius,  in  old  Persian, 
or  the  Zend,  is  spelled:  D-A-R-H-H-A-U-SCH. 

Again,  the  name  of  Xerxes,  in  Persian,  is 
KH-SCH-H-H-R-E.  Now,  if  the  third  sign 
in  the  spelling  of  the  name  of  Darius  was  the 
same  as  the  fifth  sign  in  the  spelling  of  the 
name  Xerxes,  in  the  Zend,  this  must  have  the 
phonetic  value  of  J?.  The  comparison  proved 
the  correctness  of  his  conception.  And  again, 
further  confirmation  appeared  in  another  royal 


23 


$*$JHE  ?FAT  H  ^F^JKEgjlLTHftBE 


•••S/ 


name,  Artaxerxes,  where  the  latter  part  of  the 
name  was  the  same  as  the  second  royal  name, 
and  the  sign  for  the  second  character  again  cor- 
responded with  the  letter  R. 

Thus  he  compared  letter  by  letter,  and  sign 
by  sign,  until  he  had  found  agreement  in  signs 
and  sound  for  the  names  of  these  kings  and 
their  titles. 

Grotefend  never  succeeded  much  beyond  this 
discover}',  which  was  confined  chiefly  to  the 
Persian  inscription.  The  language  of  the  oth- 
ers was  unknown,  and  the  characters  peculiar 
and  more  numerous.  They  each  evidently  rep- 
resented more  ancient  forms  of  writing,  with 
complications  not  found  in  the  simpler  Persian 
version.  Other  scholars  have  however,  carried 
forward  the  work  begun  by  Grotefend,  some 
of  these  reaching  the  same  results  independent- 
ly, as  in  the  case  of  Sir  Henry  Rawlinson,  who 
applied  the  same  processes  to  the  other  trilin- 
gual inscriptions,  quite  ignorant  of  Grotefend's 
methods,  and  with  further  success.  Still,  to 
Grotefend  is  due  the  honor  of  first  discovering 
the  clew  to  the  cuneiform  system,  and  he  it  was 
who  first  laid  a  basis  for  future  labors,  which, 
wherever  adopted,  has  reached  the  most  sat- 
isfactory results. 

As  rightly  conjectured,  the  other  texts  of  the 
trilingual  inscriptions  are  copies  of  the  same 
decrees,  addressed  to  other  peoples  of  the  realm, 


I 


i 


ft 


i 


'$N  3EHE fATH  OF  $HE, ftXFHASET  ♦ 


speaking  different  languages  and  possessing 
different  systems  of  writing.  As  a  Persian 
ruler  of  to-day  publishes  an  edict  in  Persian, 
Arabic  and  perhaps  a  Turanian  dialect,  so  that 
it  may  be  understood  by  all  his  subjects,  so  the 
ancient  Persian  kings  put  theirs  into  the  lan- 
guages and  systems  of  writing  peculiar  to  the 
principal  races  or  people  inhabiting  the  country. 

It  was  not,  however,  until  the  discovery  and 
translation  of  the  inscriptions  at  Nineveh,  that 
the  full  story  of  these  Persian  inscriptions 
was  distinctly  revealed .  It  was  then  found  that 
the  two  other  texts  were  addressed,  the  one  to 
a  Semitic  people  of  Persia,  the  other  to  a  Tura- 
nian people,  descendants  of  the  primitive  in- 
habitants of  the  country.  The  close  relations 
of  these  two  systems  of  writing  to  the  two  sim- 
ilar systems  found  in  Assyria  and  Babylonia, 
were  in  evidence  of  the  kinship  of  these  sepa- 
rate races. 

Through  the  systematic  arrangement  of  the 
vocabularies  of  the  Semitic  and  Accadian  peo- 
ple, found  in  the  Ninevite  remains,  the  secret 
of  the  Persian  trilingual  inscriptions  came  to 
light,  revealing  the  extensive  use  of  the  cunei- 
form writing  among  the  various  people  of  west- 
ern Asia. 

A  significant  fact  in  the  early  history  of  the 
decipherments  of  hieroglyphic  and  cuneiform 
characters,  are  the  coincidences  in  these  nar- 


v. 


;m  jhe  ifunn  $f  £he,{Ruhkbe 


P" 


■*C.-*v> 


^X^*9^ 


*<- 


m 


ratives.  Thus  the  keys  to  both  interpretations 
came  through  the  sound  and  spelling  of  the 
royal  names.  Again,  the  clew  given  by  the 
Coptic  to  the  sounds  of  the  old  Egyptian,  was 
also  afforded  by  the  ancient  Zend,  the  sacred 
language  of  the  Parsees. 

Notwithstanding  the  fact  that  alphabetic 
signs  were  the  key  to  each  of  these  systems  of 
writing,  we  are  not  to  find  that  either  the  hier- 
oglyphic or  cuneiform  systems  were  founded 
on  the  alphabet.  We  are  to  find  that  alpha- 
betism  and  a  pure  alphabet  are  not  identical. 
We  are  also  to  find  that  before  the  simplicities 
of  an  alphabet  are  reached;  the  art  of  writing 
in  all  systems  is  a  series  of  bewildering  com- 
plications. 

Subjoined  are  illustrations  of  cuneiform  vow- 
els and  consonants  as  written  : 

Powell 

Tt?-*  Tf1-1  (T?-1 

Consonant* 


\ 


Autturmlt: 
P.Uuls 
Denula ! 


Before      Before  Before        Before        Before 


'Tr^Tf-     T         i.-KJ'HeS      i 

.  sfrf  c!W  f  T»V  a  HI  y<y  T<!  a  IF  *"  cTf  *  <rf. 
p  IS    H     If    »  K<  f    '  *  cf    sf    cH 

'f<-  y<~  K-  *-=f  Ei  m<     *-fe**H& 
•  ts  IB    is    ■  <<  <<«        zy~n~yy-r. 

Rough  breatMug:  ^t^» 

Compound  «ign»:  f|  t?.  |f{  <J,    ^J   tram*,    ^TT  dah. 


'$1*  [£HEf! ftTH  OF  JHE^XFHiVBET  ♦ 


CHAPTER  III. 


us  gives  a  thought  to  the  fact 
that  the  grace  and  flow,  the  flexibility,  the 
mysterious  eloquence  of  written  speech  is  large- 
ly due  to  the  invention  of  letters.  Only  twen- 
ty-six simple  signs,  yet  what  marvels  of  sim- 
plicity and  power!  In  the  readiness  of  these 
for  new  combinations,  their  varied  adjustments 
and  readjustments  in  the  formation  of  words, 
we  find  the  life  and  growth,  and  practically 
unlimited  expansion  of  language;  the  rhythmi- 
cal melodies  of  verse;  those  inherent  powers 
which  render  them  so  adaptive  to  the  wants  of 
man;  and  withal,  so  easy  to  be  acquired.  Yet 
writing  without  an  alphabet  is  quite  possible. 
In  fact,  the  history  of  the  past  is  revealing 
great  nations  and  people  in  possession  of  sys- 
tems of  writing  and  of  extensive  literature,  not 
founded  on  an  alphabet. 

We  are  nevertheless  to  find  that  writing  with- 
out an  alphabet  is  a  difficult  and  complicated 
matter.  So  serious  and  difficult,  that  compar- 
atively few    could  acquire    the  art,    and  that 


-^C^ 


«y  .•/. 


27 


r 


^-^£39 


^<^- 


-..  H'^si. ;  -rnv 


jfotpiE  [PATH  |)F^HE^ULgHKBE% 


though  in  great  measure  this  was  confined  to 
special  classes,  as  the  scribes  who  devoted  them- 
selves to  the  practice,  and  the  priesthood  who 
were  invested  with  the  power,  yet  the  art  of 
writing  was  understood  and  in  common  use  to 
an  extent  incomprehensible  when  the  difficul- 
ties of  its  acquirement  are  considered.  The 
results  were  nevertheless  to  limit  the  extensions 
of  knowledge,  proving  in  all  directions  a  bar- 
rier to  progress. 

Truly  has  it  been  said  that  ' '  The  history  of 
our  alphabet  is  the  golden  thread  which  en- 
twines itself  with  the  long  story  of  man's  civ- 
ilization;" that  "  It  is  the  greatest  triumph  of 
the  human  mind;"  and  again,  as  "  The  most 
wonderful  of  intellectual  achievements."  For 
we  are  coming  to  know  that  letters  are  an  in- 
vention, not  spontaneous  productions  or  mira- 
cles of  language,  and  that  evolution,  as  in  other 
directions  of  human  inquiry,  has  much  to  say 
upon  their  origin  and  history. 

Though  taking  us  to  a  past  so  remote,  the 
record  for  the  greater  part  is  singularly  distinct 
and  clear.  The  story  is,  however,  but  a  recent 
revelation,  not  even  as  yet  fully  told,  gathering 
only  sufficient  coherence  within  the  past  forty 
years  to  make  the  telling  intelligible  or  possi- 
ble. A  fragment  of  inscription  here,  a  roll  of 
papyrus  there,  illuminated  by  the  inspirations 
of  genius,  and  the  ages  which  have  so  long 


IjOTiJHBSfalH  ^rtXEE^WXFHABET  • 


• 


withheld  from  us  the  story  of  our  alphabet,  are 
slowly  yielding  the  secret. 

To  give  in  brief  review  the  leading  facts  in 
this  story  is  the  simple  purpose  of  this  history. 

Before  entering  upon  our  narrative,  however, 
we  can  best  understand  the  obstacles  in  this 
path  of  research — perhaps  best  understand  let- 
ters themselves — by  a  brief  survey  of  the  prin- 
ciples upon  which  the  origin  and  development 
of  graphic  representation  are  said  to  depend; 
perhaps  we  may  see  more  clearly  howr  scholars 
groping  in  the  dark  in  their  stndy  of  these  un- 
known characters  came  to  perceive  first  one 
fact  and  then  another,  until  the  great  story  of 
letters  was  revealed. 

We  are  thus  first  directed  to  the  fact  that  at 
different  periods  of  time,  in  various  parts  of  the 
globe,  different  races  of  men,  each  in  their  own 
way,  have  invented  methods  of  communicating 
with  the  absent,  and  for  the  record  of  events. 

Independently  of  speech,  or  the  art  of  writ- 
ing, other  methods  employed  by  primitive  man 
of  communicating  with  his  kind  should  first  be 
noted.  Thus,  the  ancient  gesture  language, 
common  to  all  races  and  people,  whereby  facial 
expression,  attitudes  or  gesticulations,  sorrow, 
hatred,  love,  confidence,  regret,  all  emotions 
were  expressed;  that  picture  action  which  we 
find  appearing  in  picture  writing. 

Again,  objects  representing  ideas  which  were 


■J         \-\* 


re%<V 


"> 


3rJCS 


k^s 


t^t 


fcL 


_iLi»  t "ifj™  r 

*1 

Pj     1 

1 

29 


>  Jan   '-Ji 


&f&ki 


^j^mm= 


ps 


$^t^he  ^aTH$F|jaE|ULFHjrore: 


P" 


used  as  message  bearers.  In  illustration  of  this 
we  have  the  story  told  by  Herodotus*  of  the 
King  of  the  Scythians  who  sent  as  gifts  to 
Darius  when  about  to  invade  Scythia,  a  bird,  a 
mouse,  a  frog  and  five  arrows.  When  the  Per- 
sians asked  of  the  messengers  the  meaning  of 
these  gifts,  they  wrould  not  explain,  but  told 
them  they  should  discover  for  themselves  what 
these  things  signified.  The  interpretation  sug- 
gested by  Darius  was,  that  since  a  mouse  is 
bred  in  the  earth,  and  a  frog  lives  in  the  water, 
the  Scythians  gave  up  land  and  water.  The 
bird  signified  their  speedy  flight,  and  the  ar- 
rows the  surrender  of  their  arms  to  the  Persians, 

"  Not  thus,"  said  Goby  as,  "  should  you  in- 
terpret this  message.  It  means,  O  Persians, 
unless  you  become  birds  and  fly  into  the  air,  or 
mice,  and  hide  yourselves  beneath  the  earth, 
or  frogs,  and  leap  into  the  lakes,  ye  shall  never 
return  to  your  homes,  but  be  smitten  with 
these  arrows." 

Akin  to  objects  as  message  bearers,  is  the 
knight's  glove  sent  as  a  challenge  to  combat, 
the  pipe  offered  by  the  North  American  Indian 
in  token  of  amity,  the  rosemary  sent  in  remem- 
brance, or  the  rose  as  a  token  of  affection. 

Other  methods  employed  for  sending  mes- 
sages   are    of    curious    interest    as    commonly 


I 


)bi$BEf ATH  ^F$HE^LFHR»ET 


used  by  people  far  removed  from  each  other  in 
time  and  place.  *As  the  knotted  cords  of  the 
Chinese,  or  the  quippasof  the  Peruvians,  which 
by  their  numbers,  the  style  of  knotting,  or  the 
distribution  in  groups,  were  used  as  message 
bearers  to  all  parts  of  the  country.  -In  the  same 
category  also  are  the  notched  sticks  of  the 
North  American  Indians,  the  tally  sticks  of  the 
Danes,  the  English  and  other  people. 

But  while  in  different  parts  of  the  world  hu- 
man beings  have  invented  ways  of  communi- 
cating with  the  absent  without  the  art  of  writ- 
ing, to  depict  an  object  instead  of  conveying 
an  object,  would  result  as  a  simpler  and  more 
lasting  method  of  expression. 

Thus,  in  simple  pictures  of  objects,  we  find 
the  earliest  beginnings  of  the  art  of  writing. 
How  these  may  be  employed  as  message  bear- 
ers or  for  the  record  of  events  we  have  abun- 
dant illustration  in  the  picture  writings  of  the 
North  American  Indian  on  the  bark  of  trees, 
or  inscribed  on  rocks,  metal  and  stone. 

In  the  same  way,  in  rude  carvings  with  flint 
chips  on  bone  and  ivory,  records  of  the  chase 
have  come  down  to  us  from  that  far  off  time 
when  paleolythic  man  hunted  the  hairy  rhino- 


*  Confucius  states,  in  the  famous  historical  work, 
Gih  King,  that  "In  great  antiquity  knotted  cords 
served  them  (the  Chinese)  for  the  administration  of 
affairs;  and  that  later,  the  saintly  Fou  Hi  replaced 
these  by  writing." 


plltaz  {PATH  <pr|CHE|ULEHftBE^ 


BT 


,r 


X- 


_.-^>^-, 


ceros,  the  mammoth  and  the  hyena  in  the  for- 
ests of  Europe. 

Though  hardly  attaining  the  art  of  writing, 
pictorial  representations  in  kind  were  the  ear- 
liest human  attempt  in  this  mode  of  expression. 
Later,  when  pictures  became  the  symbols  of 
ideas,  as  the  picture  of  a  bee  to  symbolize  roy- 
alty, of  an  eye  to  indicate  seeing  or  knowing, 
two  legs  to  signify  walking  or  going,  or  a  spar- 
row for  cruelty  or  inferiority,  we  reach  a  higher 
stage  of  progression — relics  or  reminiscences 
often  of  the  old  gesture  language,  or  objects 
sent  as  symbols  of  ideas. 

These  two  first  stages  in  the  development  of 
the  art  of  writing  are  known  as  ideograms, 
where  signs,  symbols  or  figures  suggest  the 
ideas  of  objects  without  expressing  their  names. 
To  construct  a  sentence  in  this  way  with  the 
various  parts  of  speech,  is  impossible. 

The  next  advance  was  phonetism ,  the  repre- 
sentation of  the  sound  of  words.  Thus,  the 
picture  of  a  lion  or  a  camel  will  be  understood 
whatever  the  language  of  the  picture-maker 
may  be.  Perhaps,  also,  symbols  for  things,  as 
the  sun  for  light,  or  an  eye  for  seeing.  "  But 
how,"  says  Hereen,  "can  the  names  of  per- 
sons, as  Henry,  Lewis,  and  the  like,  be  distin- 
guished by  symbolic  pictures  ?" 

This  is  true  also  of  many  other  words  with- 
out the  adoption  of  signs  or  characters  to  rep- 


■A 


]i I*  $HE  f  ATH  *F  $HE  ItLFHUSET 


resent  sound,  or  the  names  of  things,  any  ade- 
quate expression  of  facts  or  ideas  is  impossible. 
It  thus  came  about  that  when  pictures  of  ob- 
jects or  symbols  of  ideas  obtained  a  fixed  and 
permanent  sign  for  the  sound  in  any  language 
phonetism  began. 

Among  the  confusions  which  appear  at  this 
stage  are  the  homophones;  relics  of  that  prim- 
itive stage  in  speech,  the  monosyllabic,  when 
few  sounds  were  used  to  express  many  things. 
As  an  example  in  modern  English,  we  have 
such  words  as  pair,  pare  and  pear;  or  rite, 
write,  right  and  wright;  words  so  like  in  sound, 
so  unlike  in  meaning. 

In  our  language,  these  homophones  for  the 
greater  part  are  defined  by  the  variant  spelling, 
but  as  without  an  alphabet  there  could  be  no 
variant  spelling,  other  devices  were  necessary 
to  indicate  the  various  meanings  of  words  hav- 
ing the  same  sound. 

Of  these  ingenious  devices,  numerous,  clev- 
er, though  cumbrous,  yet  so  essential  before 
letters  appeared,  more  hereafter. 

In  the  meantime,  we  find  the  same  sound 
sign  thus  came  to  be  used  for  words  differing 
widely  in  sense  and  signification.  These  sound 
signs  were  still  picture  writing.  In  no  sense 
were  they  letters  or  alphabetic  characters,  but 
pictures  of  objects  which  were  used  to  express 
sound.     This  first  stage  in  phonetism  is  there- 


^W&HE^ATH^FfcHE&IKWBE 


V 


t   ..   *-v"' 


..-^>^; 


fore  often 'called  by  philologists  the  rebus  stage. 
A  distinct  illustration  of  this  method  of  sound 
representation  is  given  in  the  rebus  form  of 
the  sentence,  "  I  can  sail  round  the  globe." 
Thus,  the  pronoun  "  I  "  is  expresed  by  the 
picture  of  an  eye;  the  verb  "  can  "  by  the  pic- 
ture of  a  can;  ' '  sail ' '  by  the  picture  of  a  boat 
or  ship's  sail;  "  round  "  by  a  circle,  and  the 
word  "  globe  "  by  a  student's  globe. 


In  this  first  stage  of  phonetism  we  find  that  ' 
pictures  of  objects  do  not  represent  these  spe- 
cial objects  as  in  the  purely  ideographic  stage, 
but  the  sound.  Again,  that  writing  had  reach- 
ed the  point  where  signs  and  symbols  stand  for 
entire  words. 

For  a  monosyllabic  language  this  might  suf- 
fice .  The  necessities  of  a  polysyllabic  language , 
however,  suggested  a  further  advance.  This 
was  to  syllabism,  the  second  stage  in  phonet- 
ism, and  here  signs  are  used  to  represent  the 
separate  articulations  of  which  words  are  com- 
posed . 

In  an  advanced  stage  of  sjdlabism  not  all  of 
the  articulations  of  polysyllabic  words  were 
thus  represented.     Some  sign  attached  to  the 


■mi  "" 


m$N  $HE?ATH  0F$HEi|UJPHABET  0 


a 


word  as  a  whole  came  to  be  used  as  the  sound 
value  of  the  initial  syllable  of  the  word. 

This  use  of  signs  for  the  initial  syllable  of 
the  word  is  one  of  those  tricks  of  abbreviation 
to  which  the  human  mind  inclines.  It  is  how- 
ever scientifically  known  as  an  application  of 
the  acrologic  principle;  viz:  the  use  of  a  sign 
primarily  representing  a  word  to  denote  its  in- 
itial syllable,  or  the  initial  sound.  Thus  we 
have  the  use  of  the  letters  "  C  "  for  century; 
"A.  D."  for  Anno  Domini,  and  other  familiar 
examples.  Also,  the  signs  for  the  Phoenician 
words  Alph,  Beth,  Gimel,  etc.,  which  came 
finally  to  appear  as  the  initial  letters  of  these 
words. 

At  the  same  time  wTe  are  to  remember  that  at 
this  stage  these  simple  signs  are  as  yet  repre- 
senting syllables.  They  do  not  as  yet  separate 
the  vowels  from  the  attached  consonants,  de- 
noting both  together  by  a  simple  sign. 

Nor  at  this  stage  of  writing  was  there  any  j)| 
conception    of   such  a  division.      The   vowel 
seems  to  have  been  regarded  as  inhering  in  the 
consonant.     As  yet  no  way  had  been  devised 
to  express  the  vowel  sounds. 

We  can,  however,  readily  perceive  that  any 
attempt  to  treat  pure  syllabic  signs  alphabeti- 
cally would  be  impossible.  The  power  of  the 
sign  for  Ne  is  not  "  n ; "  the  sign  for  Ro  is  not 
"r;"  Se,  Si  and  Suarenot  "  s;"  nor  isTu"t.' 


35 


m, 


35! 


£3 

ITHT 

wfflM, 

*! 

1 

-III 

! 


r^z&km 


-L .  .  V 


\ 


— — — : — : — : — —         \ 


The  selection  of  a  number  of  such  signs  rep- 
resenting initial  syllables  of  words  is  termed  a 
syllabary.  Its  formation  occurred  when  all, 
or  a  greater  part,  of  the  unions  of  single  con- 
sonants with  vowel  sounds  in  a  language  had 
received  each  its  phonetic  and  characteristic 
sign  and  was  thus  used  independently  of  any 
previous  signification  of  the  word  from  which 
it  was  derived. 

Selections  of  these  signs  could  be  used  almost 
as  the  alphabet  is  used  to  form  words.  That 
they  were  not  entirely  depended  upon  by  many 
intelligent  nations  that  possessed  a  syllabary 
is  one  of  the  curiosities  in  the  history  of  writ- 
ten speech. 

The  influence  of  the  syllabaries  which  devel- 
oped under  different  conditions  in  various  lan- 
guages is  an  exceedingly  interesting  study, 
sometimes  so  increasing  the  simplicities  of  writ- 
ten speech  as  to  nearly  approach  the  powers  of 
the  alphabet;  again,  increasing  the  extraordi- 
nary complexities  writing  had  assumed  at  the 
syllabic  stage. 

Thus  these  syllabaries  have  been  at  once  the 
despair  and  the  illumination  of  scholars,  who, 
attempting  to  decipher  these  unknown  charac- 
ters as  letters,  could  make  nothing  of  them,  but 
when  finally  recognizing  their  syllabic  values, 
a  wonderful  period  in  the  history  of  letters  was 
revealed. 


! 


'$X $H£f  ATH  OF  jHE^tLFHKBET 


Syllabic  systems,  wherever  found,  are  a  study 
of  special  significance;  so  nearly  alphabetic,  yet 
so  remote;  always  suggesting  the  greater  sim- 
plicities to  be,  and  yet  so  oblivious  of  these 
simplicities. 

But  one  step  further  and  alphabetism  is  at 
hand.  Instead  of  the  use  of  the  sign  for  the 
phonetic  power  of  the  syllable,  the  use  of  this 
sign  for  the  phonetic  power  of  the  letter  was 
all  that  was  necessary. 

To  many  nations  such  an  advance  was  incon- 
ceivable. For  this,  the  conception  of  the  ele- 
mentary sounds  of  which  words  are  composed 
is  necessary;  the  vowels  and  the  consonants, 
the  consonant  being  the  chief  power  in  this 
development. 

It  has  been  suggested  that  this  advance  when 
reached  was  the  result  of  the  prominence  of  the 
consonant  in  the  syllable.  For  instance,  the 
phonetic  power  of  the  consonant  in  the  syllables 
sa,  se,  si,  so,  su,  is  constant  while  the  vowels 
are  variable. 

The  consonants  thus  appeared  to  be  the  sub- 
stantial elements  of  words  while  the  vowels 
were  complementary  and  inconstant.  In  this 
way  the  sign  for  the  syllable  came  finally  to  be 
the  sign  for  the  consonant,  with  the  vowel  un- 
derstood. In  confirmation  of  this  we  find  that 
the  first  appearance  of  alphabetic  writing — that 
is  where  letters  only  are  used  for  the  formation 


pt$jaZ  ^ATHtpF  jJffi-'ALrHRBET> 


^ 


v 
* 


-  > 


of  words— was  consonant  writing.  The  earli- 
est, nearest  approach  to  a  pure  alphabet,  was 
an  alphabet  of  consonants. 

The  Semitic  languages  differ  from  all  other 
idioms  in  structure.  The  original  roots  of  Se- 
mitic words  are  tri-consonantal,  consisting  of 
three  consonants. 

Out  of  a  language  so  constructed  it  is  easy  to 
understand  the  development  of  such  an  alpha- 
bet. The  confusions  of  its  use  are  also  mani- 
fest. Thus,  in  the  changes  of  signification  of 
the  Semitic  root  word,  k-t-b,  signifying  '  'write' ' 
we  have,  when  spoken,  ka-ta-ba,  ■  he  has  writ" 
ten, ' '  ku-ta-ba,  "it  has  been  written, ' '  ka-ta-bu, 
"writing,"  and  ka-tu-bu,  "written."  In 
script,  however,  whatever  the  signification,  in 
ancient  form  we  have  simply  k-t-b  with  the 
many  meanings  supposed  to  be  explained  by 
the  context.  In  early  Semitic  script  there  was 
no  notation  for  vowel  sounds,  nor  did  these 
appear  until  a  comparatively  recent  date. 

From  this  source,  as  well  as  from  the  simi- 
larities which  these  consonantal  signs  assumed, 
have  arisen  many  embarrassments  in  the  trans- 
lation of  Hebrew,  and  curious  evidences  in 
textual  criticism. 

With  the  Semitic  letters,  however,  we  have 
reached  the  first  alphabet;  not  the  first  appear- 
ance of  letters,  or  alphabetic  characters,  but 
that  stage  in  the   evolution  of   letters  where 


■Jul     _! 


these  were  used  independently  to  express  words. 

At  this  point,  surveying  the  course  from  its 
beginnings,  we  find  the  tendencies  of  progres- 
sion are,  first,  simple  pictures  of  objects;  again, 
these  simple  pictures  representing  ideas,  then  as 
denoting  sound  or  the  names  of  objects,  later 
on  as  syllabic  signs,  and  finally  as  letters. 

Along  this  line  of  progress  there  are,  how- 
ever, certain  curious  phenomena  which  record 
the  historical  course  of  writing  as  distinctly  as 
do  the  successive  deposits  of  geological  periods. 

While  the  tendency  of  all  systems  of  writing 
is  from  ideographism  to  alphabetism ,  not  all 
reached  this  latter  stage;  some  gradually  reach- 
ed phonetism,  where  they  stopped.  Others 
advanced  to  sjdlabism  and  there  remained. 

Another  singular  circumstance  is  that  this 
progress  in  phonetism  is  always  without  giving 
up  ideographism;  that  every  stage  is  still  pic- 
ture-writing. 

Again,  we  find  each  stage  of  progress  includ- 
ing previous  steps  of  advance,  until  at  last,  as 
in  the  Egyptian  hieroglyphics,  we  have  the 
full  series  of  pictures  of  objects  and  pictures 
for  sound  with  a  formidable  array  of  determi- 
natives and  other  special  signs  and  significa- 
tions. This  order  of  progress  has  been  found  so 
constantly  true  with  all  original  systems  of 
writing  among  all  races,  near  and  remote,  that 
it  may  be  regarded  as  a  natural,  universal  law. 


39 


"W 


txt&l  ^fl.TH$FfcHE&J-gHKBE% 


^    '    '1 


%0 


5*^*8^ 


2L    L 


*-7 


£    5 


LH 


ra 


;  r  f  a  di 


<& 


3 


A  *   M    T   «   & 

geb.  or  dua.      rd,  (dcterm.)        (deter m.1)       ^dcterm.)         (detcrm.) 

'fff      %J       &8       *.       &         n 

»r  »   sff  •**   4   n 

(aVterm,}  «&  (detcrm.)  t2r.  pa.  prr 

VALUABLE  COMPARATIVE  EXAMPLE   OF  HIERO- 
GLYPHIC AND  HIERATIC  FIGURES. 


§2 


ATHCNS 


HflL 


lor  [±EE  f ATH  ^r^HE^PLLFHABST 


T 


CHAPTER  IV.     . 

'ANY  eminent  philologists  suggest  a 
time  in  the  history  of  human  speech 
when  language  was  monosyllabic, 
when  by  a  few  simple  utterances  human  beings 
were  able  to  express  many  things,  indicating 
by  gesture  or  tone  which  of  the  words  having 
the  same  sound  was  the  thing  expressed. 

Later  on  we  find  language  developed  by  the 
connection  of  two  or  three  of  these  root  words, 
agglutinated,  or  stuck  together  as  one  word, 
by  which  this  obtained  a  broader  meaning. 
This  is  the  first  stage  in  polysyllabism ,  and  is 
known  as  the  agglutinative  stage.  Later,  hu- 
man speech  passed  into  the  inflectional  stage, 
where  these  agglutinated  words  having  coal- 
esced or  melted  into  one,  became  so  changed 
in  time  by  phonetic  corruption  that  finally  it  |VV 
becomes  impossible  to  determine  which  part 
was  the  original  root  and  which  the  modifying 
element  of  the  earlier  stage. 

Of  the  monosyllabic  stage  in  language,  the 
Chinese  is  a  distinguished  example.  This  lan- 
guage is  referred  to  by  many  eminent  philolo- 
gists as  the  most  primitive  in  structure  of  any 




41 


*«^ 


pt£BZ  fPAT  H  $F$HE&IXHKB£ 


V 


living  tongue.  It  is  a  language  of  monosylla- 
bic roots,  limited  in  number,  these  roots  pos- 
sessing neither  inflections  nor  parts  of  speech. 
Each  word  is  a  root  and  each  root  is  a  word, 
which  in  turn  may  be  used,  according  to  its 
place  in  a  sentence,  as  a  verb,  a  noun,  an  ad- 
jective, a  participle,  or  some  other  grammati- 
cal form. 

In  speaking,  the  Chinese  express  these  homo- 
phones by  varying  tones  and  gestures.  In 
writing,  their  meaning  is  ingeniously  explained 
by  the  use  of  two  characters.  One  of  these  is 
a  phonogram,  which  gives  the  sound  of  the 
word;  the  other  is  an  ideogram  or  picture  form, 
that  explains  which  of  the  words  having  this 
sound  is  the  one  indicated.  These  ideograms 
are  styled  "  keys,"  and  later  on  it  will  be  ob- 
served are  identical  with  the  determinatives  of 
the  Assyrian  and  Egyptian  systems.  As  an 
instance  of  the  Chinese  use  of  these  keys,  is 
the  phonogram,  ha.  This  has  eight  distinct 
significations.  Thus,  it  may  denote  a  banana 
tree,  a  war  chariot,  a  scar,  a  cry,  or  any  other 
of  its  various  significations  according  to  the 
key  associated  with  this  phonogram. 

Thus  this  language,  possessing  but  a  limited 
number  of  root  words,  is  so  expanded  by  the 
varying  combinations  of  phonetic  signs  and 
ideographic  characters,  that  its  acquisition  for 
reading  or  writing  is  a  formidable  achievement. 


'pi  $HE  f ATH  #r$HE^GLFHi«ET^ 


Some  of  the  recent  dictionaries  of  the  English 
language  record  a  vocabulary  of  two  hundred 
thousand  words.  To  write  any  or  all  of  these 
one  needs  only  to  learn  the  twenty-six  signs 
of  our  alphabet.  To  write  a  common  business 
letter,  or  to  read  an  ordinary  book'  in  Chinese, 
it  is  necessary  that  the  scribe  or  student  should 
know  familiarly  from  six  to  seven  thousand  of 
these  groups  of  characters  by  which  to  express 
the  forty  or  fifty  thousand  words  in  the  vocab- 
ulary of  the  Chinese. 

Again,  many  of  these  characters  are  so  sim- 
ilar in  form  that  to  write  them  accurately  re- 
quires intense  concentration,  and  acute  powers 
of  memory.  Notwithstanding  this,  China  has 
been  a  center  of  culture  and  intellectual  activity 
from  her  first  appearance  upon  the  stage  of 
history. 

From  the  earliest  period,  the  social  and  polit- 
ical system  of  the  Chinese  has  been  based  upon 
educational  qualifications.  All  political  dig- 
nities, honors  and  preferments,  by  unalterable 
law  and  usage  depend  upon  the  educated  abil- 
ities and  scholarship  of  candidates  for  office. 

The  rank  of  mandarin  comes  by  no  heredi- 
tary right,  nor  by  favor  of  a  sovereign,  but 
through  severe  intellectual  effort.  If  in  some 
cases  this  is  obtained  through  corruption  and 
bribery  of  some  clever  scholar  who  sells  his 
literary  privileges  to  some  richer  competitor, 


ptfaz  ;?ath  of  £he$ophabe 


^;: 


^"V 


*V 


-T 


^<^- 


this  does  not  alter  the  case;  honors  still  go  to 
scholarship. 

It  is  said  of  these  successful  men,  the  true 
students,  that  it  would  be  difficult  to  parallel 
them  in  any  country  for  readiness  with  the  pen 
and  retentive  memory.  If  they  are  not  highly 
educated,  it  is  due  to  their  false  system  of  ed- 
ucational merit,  which  consists  in  an  undue 
exercise  of  the  memory  at  the  expense  of  the 
thinking  powers.  It  is  also  due  to  the  fact 
that  it  is  a  stereotyped  system,  based  upon  an 
ancient  usage  and  custom,  concerned  with  the 
past  and  ancient  tradition  rather  than  present 
or  future  progress. 

The  early  history  of  this  people  is  specially 
interesting  in  the  light  of  recent  discoveries. 
These  suggest,  and  the  suggestions  are  con- 
firmed in  the  ancient  literature  of  the  Chinese, 
that  at  a  period  about  B.  C.  2500,  these  people 
made  their  first  appearance  in  China  from  some 
locality  south  of  the  Caspian  Sea,  in  western 
Asia.  This  is  supposed,  from  certain  histori- 
cal correspondences,  to  have  been  Susiana,  and 
that  their  emigration  was  the  result  of  political 
disturbances  occurring  throughout  western  Asia 
at  that  date.  That,  driven  from  their  early 
home,  they  wandered  eastward,  finally  settling 
in  the  fertile  districts  of  Shansi  and  Honan, 
near  the  Yellow  river.  About  the  same  time, 
other  families  of  this  people  settled  to  the  south 


0 


gYbY-H**™™5 


m$X  $BB  fATH  OF  XHE  JflXPHJYBET  i 


in  Annim,  from  whence  these  kindred  people 
finally  spread  over  all  China. 

When  they  first  came  into  the  country,  they 
found  there  aboriginal  tribes  of  various  races. 
In  their  historical  annals  the  most  important 
of  these  primitive  inhabitants  are  referred  to  as 
the  "  Kwei  people."  It  is  said  of  these  that 
they  practiced  the  art  of  writing  and  possessed 
a  literature  which  is  referred  to  by  the  Chinese 
as  the  "  Kwei  Books,"  which  included  a  trea- 
tise on  music.  M.  de  Iyacouperie  conjectures 
these  primitive  people  to  be  of  the  Aryan  stock, 
of  whom  remnants  are  to  be  found  at  the  pres- 
ent day  in  Cambodia. 

When  the  Chinese  came  into  the  land  they 
had  a  culture  of  their  own.  They  were  ad- 
vanced in  the  industrial  arts  and  they  posses- 
sed a  system  of  writing  and  a  literature. 

They  date  the  origin  of  writing  with  them 
to  a  mythical  emperor,  Hwang-le,  who  invent- 
ed the  art,  selecting  for  this  purpose  objects  in 
the  air,  and  on  the  earth,  and  in  the  world 
around,  substituting  these  representations  or 
symbols  of  things  for  the  knotted  cords  then 
in  use. 

Modern  Chinese  writing  gives  but  a  faint 
suggestion  of  a  derivation  from  ancient  picto- 
graphs.  These,  however,  can  be  traced  by  re- 
ferring to  archaic  forms  of  these  characters. 

Again,  in  Chinese  words  formed  bv  two  char- 


-■  -  * 


K> 


^Z-r 


"^ 


p; 


l1 


*■>•■ 


r 


pijtHZ  gPATH  (^F^EC^U^HABt% 


acters,  the  one  representing  the  sound,  and  the 
other  the  key  which  indicates  the  sound,  these 
two  characters  are  so  imposed,  the  one  upon 
the  other,  as  in  a  modern  monogram,  or  are  so 
closely  associated,  that  to  the  uninitiated  they 
appear  as  one  character. 

When,  however,  these  characters  are  separ- 
ated, they  bear  often  distinct  resemblance  to 
objects,  and  in  the  archaic  forms  of  these  char- 
acters their  picture  origin  is  distinctly  appa- 
rent. 

Dr.  S.  W.  Williams,  in  his  work  "The  Mid- 
dle Kingdom,"  Vol.  I,  has  illustrations,  show- 
ing fine  examples  of  archaic  and  modern  forms 
of  Chinese  characters  that  are  in  evidence  of 
the  pictorial  origin  of  the  Chinese  system. 

The  references  to  the  mythical  emperor, 
Hwang-le,  who,  according  to  Chinese  annals, 
invented  their  system  of  writing,  seems  to  have 
antedated  the  appearance  of  this  people  in  Chi- 
na. In  their  historical  literature,  his  name  is 
written  Nak-hon-ti,  and  he  is  so  nearly  identi- 
cal in  name,  character  and  works  to  the  Susian 
deity,  Nak-hun-ti,  that  the  two  are  evidently 
the  same.  This  correspondence  suggests  the 
early  association  of  the  Chinese  with  the  fami- 
lies of  the  same  race  who  inhabited  Susiana  in 
primitive  times,  which  continue  in  the  names 
of  other  heroes  common  to  Accadian  legends 
and  the  annals  of  the  Chinese. 


—  ^Q 


■lag! 

mwT 


& 


ATHCM 


iu£- 


$N  SHEtATH  (6r$HE|^FHABET^ 


Again,  the  accordance  of  the  Chaldean  and 
Chinese  chronology  in  astronomical  and  other 
scientific  data  cannot  be  regarded  as  accidental. 

Among  many  remarkable  parallelisms  in  the 
literature  of  both  races  are  the  astrological 
chapters  of  the  ' '  She  King, ' '  the  most  ancient 
of  the  dynastic  histories  of  the  Chinese,  and 
an  astrologic  chapter  in  an  Accadian  docu- 
ment. These  have  been  translated  by  Pro- 
fessor Sayce,  from  the  cuneiform,  who  finds 
constant  occurrence  of  the  same  expressions 
in  both  records  relating  to  particular  forecasts, 
connected  with  certain  planets,  as  "Soldiers 
arise,"  "Gold  is  exchanged,"  and  many  others. 

Again,  the  division  of  the  Chinese  empire  by 
the  Emperor  Yaou  into  twelve  portions,  gov- 
erned by  twelve  "Pastor  Princes,"  in  imita- 
tion of  the  feudal  system  of  ancient  Susa,  is 
another  evidence  of  the  former  association  or 
close  contact  of  these  distinct  people. 

In  the  literature  of  the  Chinese  there  is  a 
work  for  which  they  claim  the  highest  anti- 
quity. Until  recently  no  clew  had  been  found 
for  its  interpretation.  This  was  the  "  Yih 
King,"  or  "Book  of  Changes,"  which  has 
been  a  sealed  mystery  to  the  ablest  Chinese 
scholars  of  all  ages,  including  Confucius.  Its 
interpretation  has,  however,  been  accomplish- 
ed by  M.  de  Lacouperie  who  finds  this  work 
to  be  a  collection  of   syllabaries  such  as  are 


$tf -jfcHE  PATH  ^F$HEgUXHK8£ 


*v 


•> 


r~ 


-~*V^ 


common  in  Accadian  literature.  These  are 
interspersed  with  chapters  on  astronomical  and 
astrological  lore.  Others  again,  refer  to  the 
ethnology  of  primitive  inhabitants  of  the  coun- 
try; all  of  these,  however,  taking  the  form 
of  vocabularies  only  possible  to  interpret  by 
recognizing  their  S3dlabic  character. 

The  appearance  of  this  work  in  ancient  Chi- 
nese literature  is  explained  in  two  ways.  Prof. 
Douglas  regards  this  as  an  evidence  that  in  by- 
gone ages  this  language  was  polysyllabic.  He 
points  to  the  fact  that  certain  words  indicate  a 
former  polysyllabism  and  from  this  infers  that 
the  language  as  it  now  appears  is  an  example 
of  phonetic  decay.  Others,  on  the  contrary, 
rfljff?'M  see  *n  tne  occasional  but  rare  evidences  of  ag- 
j  glutination,  the  influence  of  contact  with  other 
races  speaking  an  agglutinative  or  polysyllabic 
tongue,  and  of  which  the  above  example  in 
their  ancient  literature  is  perhaps  a  literary  re- 
mains. 

It  is  incredible  that  a  race  so  advanced  in 
polj\syllabism  as  evidenced  by  the  ' '  Yih  King, ' ' 
or  ' '  Book  of  Changes, ' '  could  revert  to  so  pure 
a  monosyllabism  as  is  now  presented  by  the 
Chinese  language.  Phonetic  decay  is  possible 
to  many  words  in  a  language,  but  so  general  a 
reversion  to  primitive  conditions  is  scarcely 
possible  of  a  whole  language. 

Reference  has  been  made  in  the  Chinese  sys- 

t 


\ 


u 


I 


*.»"H"»t»"s 


■  fflTl 


*5far  gfcHEg! ATH  PF  $HEfoLTHJ\BET> 

tern  of  writing  to  their  use  of  picture  forms  or 
ideographic  signs,  in  association  with  the  pho- 
nograms to  explain  the  meaning  or  particular 
use  of  these  signs. 

This  principle,  so  often  referred  to,  is  by  no 
means  a  special  invention  of  the  Chinese,  but 
as  we  shall  see,  occurs  in  all  original  pictorial 
systems  of  writing  with  the  development  of 
phonetism.  This  is,  that  when  phonetic  val- 
ues begin  to  attach  themselves  to  the  primitive 
ideographs,  these  are  .retained  and  attached  to 
the  signs  expressing  the  primitive  sound. 

"As  if,"  says  Prof.  Sayce,  "to  assist  the 
memory  in  remembering  the  meaning  and  pro- 
nunciation of  a  particular  word." 

In  this  way  evidently  the  '  *  keys ' '  of  the 
Chinese  system  had  their  origin,  as  also  the 
determinatives  of  the  cuneiform,  the  hierogly- 
phic systems  of  the  Egyptians,  the  Maya  or 
Mexican,  and  other  pictorial  systems. 

Among  the  many  advantages  obtained  from 
a  purely  syllabic,  or  purely  alphabetic  system 
of  writing  is  the  easy  adjustment  of  these  signs 
to  various  forms  of  speech.  This  is  eminently 
true  of  alphabetic  systems.  On  the  other  hand 
the  application  of  non-alphabetic  characters  to 
other  than  the  original  language  to  which  these 
were  adapted  is  by  no  means  so  simple  and 
manageable  in  results. 

We  have  seen  how  the  Chinese,  by  the  sim 


49 


jfrY^E^ATH^F^XSE&LFHKBE: 


^s^g&t 


*v> 


V  . 


~>- 


r  -y^**^- 


pie  use  of.  the  phonogram  and  the  ideogram, 
were  enabled  by  the  structure  of  their  language 
to  retain  this  form  without  variation  through 
the  ages. 

The  tendency  in  polysyllabic  languages  after 
reaching  the  phonetic  stage,  was  to  greater 
complexity  and  an  increase  of  explanatory  signs 
in  systems  of  writing.  Sometimes  the  trans- 
missions of  these  primitive  systems  from  one 
race  to  another,  led  to  simpler  methods. 

It,  however,  not  infrequently  happened  that 
these  transmissions  led  to  greater  complexity. 
This  depended  somewhat  upon  the  diversity 
between  the  languages  spoken  by  the  authors 
of  the  primitive  system  of  writing  and  those 
who  adopted  it. 

While  speech  and  mode  of  writing  are  dis- 
tinct and  independent,  the  one  of  the  other, 
the  influence  of  language  structure  in  the  evo- 
lution of  graphic  systems  is  conspicuous.  Thus 
a  sentence  of  English  speech  might  be  express- 
ed by  Chinese  characters  or  Egyptian  hiero- 
glyphics. In  the  Tel  Armana  tablets,  more 
than  one  language  appears  in  the  cuneiform. 
We  have  seen  how  the  so  called  Hittite  charac- 
ters were  found  on  occasion  yielding  Greek 
words,  and  the  use  of  the  Roman  alphabet  for 
French,  German,  Italian  and  other  languages, 
are  every  day  examples. 

The  fact  however  remains,  that  in  the  pro- 


"gjT&HEfATH  @F$HE£ttFHaBET 


'T 


n? 


cess  of  the  development  of  primitive  systems  of 
writing,  before  the  use  of  an  alphabet,  the  in- 
fluence of  language  structure  upon  the  systems 
of  writing  is  an  important  factor  in  the  case. 

A  curious  phenomenon  in  the  history  of  hu- 
man speech  is  the  preference  shown  by  certain 
families  of  language  for  special  combinations 
of  vowels  and  consonants.  The  simplest  com- 
bination is  of  a  single  vowel  with  a  preceding 
consonant  in  the  formation  of  syllables.  For 
instance,  such  words  as  Ho-no-lu-lu,  Mi-ka-do 
and  others. 

The  Japanese  form  their  syllables  only  in  this 
way.  The  same  is  true  of  Polynesian  dialects 
and  also  certain  families  of  language  in  Africa 
south  of  the  Equator. 

Some  distinguished  philologists  suggest  this 
relation  of  consonant  and  vowel  as  survivals 
of  the  original  elements  of  speech;  an  example, 
perhaps,  in  language,  of  "  the  line  of  least  re- 
sistance." It  is  easier  to  utter  sa  than  as,  ta 
than  at,  and  so  on.  However  this  may  be,  it 
is  a  notable  fact  that  certain  families  of  speech 
form  their  syllables  only  in  this  way. 

Again,  the  Semitic  languages  are  alone  in 
their  use  of  three  consonants  in  the  formation 
of  root  words;  three  consonants  with  their  com- 
plementary vowels  and  no  more. 

Other  languages  form  their  syllables  with 
every  possible  combination  of  consonants  and 


!i*T$HE  [PATH  OF  ^HE^LPK ABE 


P" 


r 


^<^^. 


^^J^^Mr,^ 


vowels,  some  showing  a  preference  for  the  con- 
sonants, others  for  the  vowels,  while  again 
others  combine  their  syllables  as  the  case  may 
be,  showing  no  decided  preferences  for  special 
combinations  of  vowels  and  consonants. 

These  conditions  have  had  their  influence  on 
the  development  of  graphic  systems.  In  the 
simplest  combination  of  a  consonant  and  vow- 
el, assa,  se,  si,  so,  su,  if  the  combining  power 
is  only  one  way  and  never  another,  as  as,  es,  is, 
os,  us,  the  number  of  syllables  that  can  be  form- 
ed in  such  a  language  are  few,  and  the  number 
of  signs  to  express  these  are  consequently  lim- 
ited. But  when  the  combining  power  is  both 
ways,  the  number  of  possible  syllables  increases 
with  every  increase  of  these  combinations  of 
vowels  and  consonants,  and  the  number  of 
signs  correspondingly. 

The  transmission  of  the  Chinese  system  of 
writing  to  the  Japanese,  which  occurred  about 
the  third  century,  B.  C,  indicates  this  influ- 
ence of  language  structure  towards  simplicity. 
The  Japanese  language  is  polysyllabic.  No 
syllable  contains  more  than  one  vowel,  with  a 
single  preceding  consonant. 

In  the  adoption  by  the  Japanese  of  the  Chi- 
nese characters  in  the  Ka-ta-ka-na  syllabary,  a 
certain  number  of  phonograms  were  selected 
which  would  give  the  sound  of  the  unions  of 
consonants  and    vowels  in  the   Japanese  Ian- 


$n  £he  £ath  ^r  Jee,  Alphabet  • 


guage.  As  spoken,  this  includes  five  vowels 
and  fifteen  consonants.  As  these  combine  only 
in  one  way  there  are  but  seventy-five  possible 
combinations  of  vowels  and  consonants  in  this 
language.  As  some  of  these  possible  combina- 
tions never  occur,  the  use  of  forty-five  of  these 
syllabic  signs  are  all  that  is  necessary  to  form 
any  word  in  the  Japanese  language,  with  the 
Ka-ta-ka-na  syllabary. 

In  the  formation  of  this  syllabary  the  ideo- 
graphic characters  of  the  Chinese  system  were 
found  unnecessary  and  were  rejected.  The 
result  has  been  one  of  the  best  syllabaries  that 
has  ever  been  constructed. 

The  Japanese  have  another  syllabary,  the 
Hi-ra-ka-na,  derived  from  a  cursive  script  of 
the  Chinese.  This  syllabary,  however,  is  more 
complicated,  including  with  the  syllables  a 
greater  number  of  signs  as  variants,  and  homo- 
phones, in  all  nearly  three  hundred;  a  marked 
contrast  to  the  simplicity  of  the  other.  It  is, 
however,  one  among  the  many  instances  we 
have  in  the  evolution  of  letters,  where  the  sim- 
pler way  seems  so  easy  and  evident,  but  yet  is 
not  recognized. 


"V 


pt$B&$FKrnfrpqE$lXBKKB$ 


r»OM   TS1.  METBOPOIJTAN    MU8MIM   Ot   ART.    NEW   YORK   CITY 


Lines  1  and  2  read  in  the  original  from  right  to  left !  Be- 
low lines  1  and  2  the  god  Osiris  is  represented  as  sitting  on  hia 
throne,  and  the  inscription  of  these  two  lines  refers  to  him.  Be- 
low lines  8  and' 9  we  find  Amen-neb,  the  dedicator  of  the  tab 
let,  kneeling,  and  below  line  11  his  wife  Hui-  kneels. 

Transcription :  (1)  Usar  heq  zeta  nuter  a  (2)'  suten  anxu 
(3)  mer  arat  en  Amen  Amen-neb  zedef  (4)  anez  hirek  qa 
amenti  heq  nefer  (5)  neb  zeta  iu  ena  xerek  (6)  seka-ut  3ushu  (7) 
nefer-uk  duk  hotepa  (8)  em  ast  ent  neheh  set  hesn  (9)  amen 
hati-a  nen  ger  (10)  amef  (11)  himtef  nebt  per  mertef  Hut  zed 
nea. 

Translation :  (1)  [This  is]  Ocirio,  the  god  of  eternity,  the 
great  god,  <2)  The  King  of  the  living.  (3)  The  chief  of  the 
store-house  of  Amen,  Amen-neb  says :  (4)  Hail  to  thee,  ruler 
[literally :  '  bull ']  of  the  Lower  World,  gracious  god,  (5)  lord 
of  eternity,  let  me  come  before  thee,  (6)  let  me  extol  in  praise 
(7)  thy  beauty.  Give  me  peace  (8)  in  the  abode  of  eternity,  in 
the  country  of  praise  [i.  e.  Hsdes]  (9)  that  will  hide  my  heart. 
There  is  no  de-  (10)  ceit  in  it  [i.  e.  the  heart].  (11)  His  wife, 
mistress  of  his  house,  his  belovod,  Hui,  she  [also]  repeats  [thiB 
prayer]. 


TRANSLATION   OF   INSCRIPTION   ON   ANCIENT 
EGYPTIAN  TABLET. 


\pi$EE  *ATH  (gr^HEjfcLFHHBET^- 


CHAPTER  V. 

^/i-Cl^HE  path  of  our  alphabet  seems  to  be 
c>t^  taking  us  far  afield  when  we  turn  to 
cL*^£3  Chinese  systems  of  writing  and  to 
the  origin  and  development  of  cuneiform.  Nev- 
ertheless, it  is  in  this  course  that  some  of  the 
richest  developments  have  appeared  and  the 
greatest  rewards  have  been  obtained  by  schol- 
ars in  this  special  direction  of  research. 

In  the  narrative  given  of  the  decipherment 
of  cuneiform  writing  reference  was  made  to 
the  three  distinct  combinations  of  the  arrow- 
headed  or  wedge-shaped  characters  in  the  tri- 
lingual inscriptions  at  first  deciphered. 

It  was  found  that  these  three  distinct  com- 
binations of  cuneiform  signs  represented  three 
languages  of  three  distinct  races  of  men,  the 
Persian,  an  Aryan  people  speaking  an  inflec- 
tional language;  the  Assyro-Babylonians,  Se- 
mitic people  who  spoke  a  language  related  to 
the  Hebrew,  and  the  third  a  Turanian  people 
who  spoke  an  agglutinative  language,  allied  to 
that  of  the  modern  Turks  or  Finns. 

It  was  some  time  after  the  decipherment  of 
the  Persian  version  of  the  cuneiform  texts  be- 


•  '  '1 


2s* 
-5V 


tf-V 


-^w^ 
-^<^^, 


^3ifi£lfo 


$w£he  |ath  of  XH&Aj-r  hrbe >a 

fore  these  facts  became  fully  understood.  The 
Semitic  text  presented  unusual  difficulties, 
while  the  language  of  the  other  version  remain- 
ed for  a  time  unknown. 

The  discoveries  of  Mr.  L,ayard,  shortly  after, 
on  the  site  of  ancient  Nineveh,  were  to  throw 
more  light  upon  the  subject. 

With  the  unearthing  of  the  royal  palace  of 
Assur-bani-pal,  at  Keyunji,  the  remains  of  the 
great  library  founded  by  this  monarch  were 
discovered  beneath  the  ruins. 

These  remains  consisted  of  more  than  twen- 
ty thousand  bricks,  tablets  and  cylinders,  some 
of  which  were  in  fragments,  but  a  greater  part 
entire,  and  the  inscriptions  thereon  as  distinct 
as  when  first  impressed  in  the  soft  clay. 

This  was  a  fine,  tenacious  clay  of  the  region 
which  had  been  moulded  into  bricks  and  cyl- 
inders of  various  sizes,  upon  which  when  moist 
the  cuneiform  letters  had  been  impressed  by  a 
wooden  or  metal  stylus.  They  had  then,  for 
the  greater  part,  been  hardened  by  a  slow  fire, 
and  were  thus  made  practically  indestructible. 
These  cuneiform  books  were  soon  distributed 
in  the  great  libraries  and  museums  of  Europe, 
and  thus  became  accessible  to  scholars. 

Among  these  literary  documents  were  found 
a  large  number  which  consisted  of  translations, 
either  interlinear  or  in  parallel  passages,  from  a 
non-Semitic  language  into  Assyro-Baby Ionian. 


)iN  $HE  fATH  VT^fJTBAJLFUnBET 


It  appeared  in  two  dialects,  the  speech  of  the 
earl}r  people  of  northern  Babylonia — the  people 
of  Accad — and  the  speech  of  the  primitive  in- 
habitants of  southern  Babylonia — the  people  of 
Sumir  or  Shinar. 

The  close  alliance  of  the  peoples  of  Accad 
and  Sumir  in  race  and  language  has  led  to  the 
general  application  of  the  name  of  Accadians 
to  both  families.  A  closer  distinction  in  gene- 
ral terms  now  adopted  by  scholars  is  Sumerian. 

Further  discoveries  rapidly  following  the  un- 
earthing of  the  Ninevite  tablets,  confirmed  the 
evidences  that  these  people  were  the  inventors 
of  cuneiform,  and  that  the  Sumerian  dialect 
represented  the  most  ancient  of  the  cuneiform 
scripts. 

In  the  oldest  inscriptions  which  have  yet  been 
found  the  characters  are  hardly  as  yet  cunei- 
form. The  lines  are  straight  and  simple,  re- 
sembling somewhat  the  strokes  and  dashes  ap- 
pearing in  words  spelled  by  the  electric  tele- 
graphic code. 

The  arrangement  of  these  is  pictorial,  form- 
ing picture  hieroglyphics,  and  these  were  found 
to  be  ideographic  and  not  phonetic. 

By  degrees  the  wedge-shaped  and  arrowT- 
headed  characters  appear,  the  pictorial  forms 
are  not  so  distinct  and  these  characters  express 
sound  as  well  as  ideas- 

The  story  revealed  by  these  older  inscriptions 


$7i  JHE  EFJiTH  (pF  tJHE^lJ?HRBE 


was  a  genuine  surprise  to  scholars.  It  not  only 
presented  the  remoter  occupation  of  Mesopota- 
mia by  a  hitherto  unknown  people,  but  also 
that  while  to  Mesopotamia  is  to  be  accorded 
the  distinction  as  the  ' (  mother  land  ' '  of  the 
arts  and  sciences,  it  was  not  to  its  Semitic  in- 
habitants, the  Assyrians  and  Babylonians  of 
history,  that  this  is  due. 

Here,  long  before  the  appearance  of  a  Semitic 
people  in  the  land,  scientific  applications  to  the 
industrial  arts  were  abundant.  An  extensive 
system  of  irrigation  and  canals  were  in  use  in 
the  arid  regions  and  drainage  for  the  low  lands 
near  the  sea,  The  arts  of  metallurgy  were 
practised.  Mathematics  and  geometry  were 
applied  to  structures,  and  astronomy  to  meas- 
urements of  time  and  planetary  movements. 
.  They  were  builders  of  cities.  As  we  have 
seen,  they  had  invented  a  system  of  writing. 
In  certain  cities  they  had  schools  for  scribes, 
and  they  had  libraries  where  the  literature  thus 
developed  was  collected. 

When  we  learn  that  this  testimony  takes  us 
back  to  a  date  older  than  the  pyramids  and  to 
the  earlier  Egyptian  dynasties,  we  may  well 
exclaim  at  the  astonishing  facts  archaeology  is 
presenting. 

Until  recently  there  were  no  evidences  of  a 
civilization  in  Babylonia  which  approached  the 
antiquity  of  Egyptian  monuments. 


m$Nl±BEtATH  «)F$HE^tIJ?HiVBET. 


'i 
T 

m4 


T 


? 

n? 

in 


In  1883,  Dr.  Taylor  placed  the  earliest  dates 
from  the  cuneiform  at  between  2700  and  3000, 
B.  C.  Recent  discoveries,  however,  refer  back 
to  a  period,  according  to  Prof.  Hilfrecht,  at 
least  three  milleniums  earlier,  and  point  to  a 
civilization  distinct  and  original  with  the  Tu- 
ranian races  of  Asia  preceding  that  of  other 
races  and  people  in  these  regions. 

Mesopotamia,  "The  land  between  the  riv- 
ers,"  is  a  tract  of  country  extending  about  seven 
hundred  miles  from  its  northernmost  boun- 
daries, near  the  mountains  of  Armenia,  to  the 
southernmost  limit,  the  Persian  Gulf.  A  range 
of  hills  crosses  this  region  near  the  center,  run- 
ning east  and  west,  from  the  Euphrates  to  the 
Tigris.  North  of  these  hills  the  country  is  the 
ancient  Assyria,  with  its  capital,  Nineveh,  sit- 
uated on  the  Tigris.  South  of  these  hills  to 
the  Persian  Gulf,  is  the  ancient  Babylonia,  or 
Chaldea,  where,  on  the  Euphrates,  its  later 
capital,  Babylon,  was  situated. 

In  the  more  ancient  records  Assyria  appears 
as"Accad,"  or  "Agade;"  the  southern  por- 
tion, or  Babylonia,  as  "Sumir,"  or  the  land 
of  "  Shinar,"  and  later  as  Chaldea. 

For  the  greater  portion,  this  region  is  a  dead 
level,  its  monotony  unbroken  but  for  the  rich 
verdure  of  the  lands  bordering  upon  these  great 
rivers,  and  the  long  lines  of  slightly  elevated 
embankments  marking  the  course  of  ancient, 


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or  more  recent  canals,  and  the  solitary  mounds 
rising  here  and  there  from  the  plain. 

These  are  the  sites  of  ancient  temples  and 
cities  and  are  sometimes  very  extensive.  The 
mounds  of  Warka,  the  ancient  Erech,  are  nearly 
six  miles  in  circumference  and  in  some  places 
rise  to  the  height  of  one  hundred  feet. 

The  great  mound  of  Koyunjik  covers  an  area 
of  over  one  hundred  acres  in  extent,  and  is 
ninety-five  feet  high  at  its  most  elevated  point. 
That  of  Nippur,  with  the  ruins  of  the  great 
temple  of  Bel,  rose  over  one  hundred  feet  above 
the  plain.  Others  are  smaller,  and  sometimes 
were  intended  to  support  but  one  palace  or 
temple. 

These  mounds  are  artificial,  their  founda- 
tions consisting  of  earth  mixed  with  burned 
bricks  in  alternate  layers,  the  whole  encased 
by  a  wall  of  bricks  cemented  with  bitumen,  or 
as  in  Assyria,  where  stone  could  be  obtained, 
by  a  facing  of  stone  masonry. 

Upon  these  artificial  hills  or  mounds,  the  in- 
habitants of  Mesopotamia,  from  the  most  re- 
mote to  later  times,  built  their  cities,  their  pal- 
aces, their  temples  and  other  important  struc- 
tures. 

The  heavy  rains  of  the  winter  season  cours- 
ing down  these  declivities  for  so  many  centu- 
ries, have  in  places  worn  deep  ravines  in  the 
mounds,  through  which  the  torrents  have  car- 


I 


i Xi  $HE $ ATH  OF  ^HEjfLLFHlVBET  . 


S 


ried  the  crumbling  debris  far  out  upon  the 
plain.  In  this  way  many  valuable  relics  have 
come  to  light;  bits  of  pottery,  inscribed  bricks, 
seals  and  cylinders,  the  form  and  style  of  the 
inscriptions  upon  some  of  these  indicating  great 
antiquity. 

These  indications  of  greater  antiquity  include 
inscriptions  on  bricks  for  building  purposes  as 
well  as  those  used  for  record  and  literature. 
They  include  also  the  form  and  character  of 
the  inscriptions,  whether  archaic  or  later  cunei- 
form ,  and  again  the  use  of  bitumen  or  cement 
in  masonry. 

In  primitive  times  the  first  bricks  which  suc- 
ceeded the  mud  wall  were  sun-dried  and  were 
laid  up  with  reeds  and  plastered  with  soft  mud 
or  bitumen.  This  bitumen  was  applied  hot 
and  adhered  so  firmly  to  the  bricks  that  it  is  al- 
most impossible  to  break  them  apart  to  obtain 
the  cement  and  is  one  cause  why  the  masonry 
consisting  of  sun-dried  bricks  has  in  many  cases 
withstood  the  ages.  Later  the  sun-dried  bricks 
came  to  be  used  only  for  interior  walls,  while 
for  the  outer  walls  bricks  were  made  from  se- 
lected clay  and  were  carefully  prepared  and 
burned,  forming  bricks  of  superior  quality  and 
strength.  So  well  have  these  withstood  the 
ravages  of  time  that  some  of  the  mounds,  nota- 
bly those  of  the  later  Babylonian  period,  are 
veritable  quarries  of  building  brick. 


V 


61 


tWJtatfrATgfrftroftLgHHBBffi 


It  is  stated  that  the  bricks  of  which  the  tem- 
ples and  palaces  of  Babylon  were  built,  have 
for  the  past  two  thousand  years  supplied  cities 
of  the  surrounding  region  with  the  material 
used  in  the  construction  of  public  and  private 
edifices,  and  that  certain  families  of  the  Babili 
tribe,  who  claim  to  be  direct  descendants  of  the 
Babylonians,  are  exclusively  employed  in  quar- 
rying them. 

As  has  been  stated,  bitumen  was  used  for 
laying  the  masonry  in  the  remoter  times  long 
before  Babylon  was  built.  Of  this  substance 
an  abundant  supply  was  to  be  obtained  at  var- 
ious places  in  southern  Mesopotamia,  near  the 
Arabian  desert,  notably  in  the  neighborhood 
of  Ur,  now  Mugheir,  "the  bitumened,"  so 
called  from  the  bitumenous  springs  of  the  vi- 
cinity. In  time,  the  use  of  this  for  masonry 
gave  place  to  a  fine  white  mortar  made  from  a 
peculiar  calcareous  clay,  found  near  the  Ara- 
bian frontier  to  the  west  of  the  Euphrates  in 
southern  Mesopotamia,  which  for  lightness  and 
strength  has  never  been  surpassed. 

These  evidences,  including  also  the  inscrip- 
tions originally  stamped  upon  the  bricks,  with 
the  name  of  the  king  or  ruler  under  whose  or- 
ders they  had  been  prepared,  furnish  indica- 
tions of  their  time  and  place  in  history. 

It  thus  came  about  that  explorers  following 
the  work  of  Botta,  Layard,  George  Smith  and 


~$I*  ntHE  f ATH  t)F  JHE  &LFHABET  ♦: 


others,  found  their  way  to  sites  more  ancient 
by  many  centuries  than  the  beginnings  of  Nin- 
eveh or  Babylon,  and  have  obtained  from  these 
records  of  great  historical  importance. 

The  more  ancient  of  these  sites'  are  in  the 
southern  portion  of  the  country,  in  that  region 
anciently  known  as  Sumir,  or  Shinar,  and  later 
as  Chaldea. 

This  was  on  the  lower  courses  of  the  great 
rivers,  the  Tigris  and  Euphrates,  towards  the 
Persian  Gulf.  This  region  abounds  with  the 
ruins  of  ancient  cities  as  yet  unexplored.  The 
most  important  of  the  cities  of  this  region  were 
Eridu,  the  most  ancient  and  sacred,  now  mark- 
ed by  the  mud  heaps  of  Abu  Sharein;  the  city 
of  Ur,  now  Mugheir,  once  a  maritime  and 
commercial  city  of  these  earlier  times,  and  of 
special  interest  as  that  "  Ur  of  the  Chaldees," 
the  early  home  of  Abraham;  Nippur,  or  Nef- 
fur,  the  seat  of  older  Bel;  Tel  Loh,  the  ancient 
Sirgulla,  and  Larsa. 

The  sites  of  Ur  and  Eridu,  once  near  the  sea, 
are  now  far  inland.  Eridu,  formerly  directly 
upon  the  shores  of  the  Persian  Gulf,  is  now 
one  hundred  and  fifty  miles  distant,  while  Ur, 
once  situated  at  the  mouth  of  the  Euphrates, 
is  now  about  one  hundred  and  fifty  miles  dis- 
tant from  the  sea,  and  about  six  miles  to  the 
west  of  the  present  course  of  the  Euphrates  on 
the  western  banks  of  the  older  bed  of  the  river, 


-■*a~a^ 


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£V. 


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nearly  opposite  the  point — though  six  miles 
awa\ — where  the  Shat-el-Hic  enters  the  Eu- 
phrates from  the  east,  as  it  approaches  from  its 
source  in  the  Tigris. 

It  is  estimated  that  the  alluvium  brought 
down  by  these  great  rivers  has  encroached  upon 
the  Persian  Gulf  by  the  formation  of  land  about 
sixty  feet  annually,  creating  a  delta  at  the  head 
of  the  gulf  of  ninety  miles  in  three  thousand 
years. 

These  deposits  have  been  more  rapid  in  later 
times  than  anciently.  The  great  cause  of  the 
difference  between  ancient  and  modern  Chal- 
dea  is  the  neglect  of  the  water  courses.  In 
ancient  times,  a  well  arranged  system  of  em- 
bankments and  irrigating  canals  held  these 
great  rivers  in  their  courses  by  distributing  the 
superabundant  waters  of  the  great  flood  times 
to  all  parts  of  the  country,  thus  enriching  the 
soil  with  abundant  water  supply  at  all  seasons. 

In  the  present  neglected  condition  of  this 
region  the  floods  as  they  come  down  from  the 
mountain  sources  of  the  Euphrates  are  liable 
to  wash  away  the  banks,  sometimes  changing 
the  course  of  the  river,  and  overflowing  large 
tracts  at  slightly  lower  levels,  which  have  be- 
come unwholesome  marshes,  while  other  large 
tracts  which  are  never  inundated,  in  the  fierce 
heats  become  parched  and  desolate  sand  wastes. 
It  is  said  that  such  is  the  spread  and  waste  of 


IN  [JHE  f ATH  ^F^HE^ULFBaVEET 


£t-~ -- 


if 

T 


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of  the  Euphrates  in  its  lower  course,  that,  ex- 
cept in  flood  time,  but  a  small  proportion  of 
this  great  volume  of  water  reaches  the  sea. 

These  conditions  do  not  so  seriously  affect 
the  Tigris,  which  for  the  greater  part  of  its 
course  flows  over  a  rocky  bed,  between  high 
embankments,  and  which,  though  a  narrower, 
is  a  deeper  and  swifter  stream  than  the  Eu- 
phrates. 

Within  historic  times,  the  Tigris  and  Euphra- 
tes entered  the  sea  by  separate  channels  nearly 
thirty  miles  apart.  At  the  present  time,  and 
for  many  centuries,  these  two  rivers  have  been 
united,  forming  the  great  river,  the  Shat-el- 
Arab,  through  which,  in  a  course  of  about  one 
hundred  and  twenty  miles,  their  united  waters 
reach  the  sea. 


%-:■ 


ummi 


ft*^Efr*TH9Ffeg;aiXHABE' 


l*"11"! 


Hieroglyphic    Transcription. 


say  ffilU'u&^a  «£»vlUii£!\ 

.4  /roe  Translation  of  the  above. 

Praise  ye  Amen-Ra, — the  mighty  one  who  dwells  in  Helio- 
polis,  great  above  all  the  gods ! — A-  gracious  god  is  he  to  those 
who  love  him. — His  rays  of  life  enlighten — All  his  grand 
creation. — Hail  to  thee,  oh  Amen-Ra,  whose  seat  is  Egypt's 
double  throne  t — Thou  art  the  prince  in  Southern  Thebes, — 
Grand  sovereign  in  thy  reahn.— Thou  goest  through  the  South- 
ern land, — And  nations  call  thee  lord.  Arabia  calls  thee  prince. — 
Thou  Ancient  One  of  Heaven,  and  Oldest  One  of  Earth, — Who 
didBt  produce  existences  and  govern  things,  doest  still  support 
creation. — Thou  art  unchangeable  amid  the  changes  of  the 
gods. — Thou  art  benign,  a  ruler  of  the  heavenly  cycle, — Yea, 
lord  of  all  the  deities, — The  prince  of  truth  and  sire  of  the 
goda. 

HIEROGLYPHIC  TEXT  AND  TRANSLATION. 


aegfi^l 


m$H  3CHE  £ATH  0r$HE^PLLFHRBET 


i 

k 


CHAPTER  VI. 

C^vEx^rHE  immense  antiquity  suggested  in 
t?  oTA  the  maritime  conditions  at  Ur  and 
c^JL^o  Eridu  is  again  emphasized  by  the  as- 
tronomical tablets.  At  this  remote  date  it  ap- 
pears that  these  ancient  Turanian  Chaldeans 
had  traced  the  yearly  course  of  the  sun  among 
the  stars. 

The  twelve  constellations  forming  the  signs 
of  the  zodiac  had  also  been  established  by  them , 
with  the  significations  which  have  continued 
to  the  present  day. 

They  had  divided  the  year  into  twelve 
months,  and  the  first  month  of  their  year — 
which  began  with  the  vernal  equinox — was 
named  for  the  constellation,  or  zodiacal  sign, 
which  opened  the  year. 

This  was  Taurus,  whose  figure  appears  in 
these  ancient  calendars  as  leading  the  months 
at  the  beginning  of  the  year.  At  the  time  this 
was  prepared  the  sun  was  in  Taurus  at  the 
vernal  equinox.  About  2500  B.  C,  the  sun 
entered  Aries  at  this  period  of  the  year,  while 
the  date  when  the  sun  entered  Taurus  at  the 
vernal  equinox  was  4700  B.C. 


;iiV  $H£  PATH  OF  tH^JOPHABET ♦, 


Other  evidences  from  these  principal  cities 
of  southern  Mesopotamia,  present,  in  the  re- 
moter times,  this  land  of  Sumir  as  a  populous, 
fertile,  well  watered  and  cultivated  country. 

It  was  divided  into  small  states,  each  sur- 
rounding a  city  containing  a  temple  devoted  to 
the  service  of  certain  astral  divinities,  as  Ur, 
the  city  of  the  Moon  God;  or  Earsa,  with  its 
Temple  of  the  Sun . 

Near  these  temples,  and  accessible  from  them 
were  the  Zigguratas,  the  temple  observatories 
for  astronomical  and  astrological  studies. 

They  had  also  priestly  colleges,  schools  for 
scribes,  and  libraries  as  at  Erech,  which  was 
known  as  the  "  City  of  Books." 

These  small  states  with  their  cities,  were  in 
the  earliest  times  each  governed  by  ' '  patesi , ' ' 
priest-kings,  corresponding  to  the  "pastor 
princes  "  of  ancient  China,  or  theHorsheshu, 
of  ancient  Egypt.  Eater  on  as  certain  of  these 
priest  kings  became  more  powerful,  the  neigh- 
boring states  and  cities  came  under  their  dom- 
ination, until  finally  we  find  all  southern  Mes- 
opotamia ruled  by  kings  of  Sumir,  and  north- 
ern Mesopotamia  by  kings  of  Accad. 

Of  the  explorations  which  have  been  under- 
taken of  these  older  cities  of  Chaldea,  the  most 
extensive  are  those  which  have  occurred  on  the 
sites  of  the  ancient  Nippur  and  at  Tel-Eoh,the 
ancient  Shirpulla. 


]i*i  ±EE  t ATH  0F$HE^tLFHRBET 


The  former  excavations,  which  have  been 
conducted  under  the  auspices  of  the  University 
of  Pennsylvania,  since  the  year  1888  to  the 
present  date,  have  recovered  the  most  ancient 
remains  as  yet  discovered  of  these  older  civili- 
zations, dating,  as  estimated  by  Prof .  Hilfrecht, 
from  a  period  about  7000  B.C. 

This  includes  the  enormous  structure  dedi- 
cated to  the  older  Bel,  which  had  been  rebuilt 
by  successive  monarchs,  its  later  ruins  rising 
to  a  height  of  over  one  hundred  feet  above  the 
plain,  while  its  lower  foundations  reach  as  great 
a  depth  below. 

From  this  and  other  great  buildings  in  the 
vicinity  were  obtained  sacrificial  vessels,  mar- 
ble and  silver  vases,  objects  in  gold  and  bronze, 
stone  door  sockets  and  over  thirty  thousand 
clay  tablets. 

These  include  remains  from  the  earliest  per- 
iods of  civilization  to  the  latest  Babylonian 
history,  from  the  earliest  primitive  Sumerian 
rulers  to  the  latest  Semitic  kings. 

They  give  records  of  powerful  kings  as  rulers 
of  Accad  during  the  two  milleniums  preceding 
the  reigns  of  the  great  Sargon  and  his  son, 
Naram-Sin. 

Of  these  two  monarchs  a  great  number  of  in- 
scribed objects  have  been  obtained,  some  of  the 
most  important  relics  as  yet  discovered  verify- 
ing inscriptions  found  elsewhere  of  the  extent 


69 


l>  »  . 


1 


<rv 


r 


~****P+*^2 


^^E^ATH^F^HE^IXHIIgt^ 


of  their  power.  Remains  were  also  found  here 
of  later  kings  of  Ur  and  other  cities  of  this  re- 
gion, whose  names  elsewhere  appear  as  great 
builders  or  restorers  of  ancient  temples. 

Of  this  earlier  period,  that  of  the  "  patesi," 
or  priest  kings,  some  very  wonderful  records 
have  been  discovered  by  M.  de  Sarzec  at  Tel- 
Loh.  The  group  of  mounds  of  which  Tel-Loli 
is  the  chief,  is  the  site  of  a  very  ancient  city 
in  southern  Mesopotamia,  the  ancient  Zirgul, 
or  Sirgulla.  It  is  situated  between  the  Tigris 
and  Euphrates,  near  the  junction  of  the  former 
river  with  the  Shat-el-Hic,  a  small  river  which 
flows  southwesterly  to  the  Euphrates,  connect- 
ing the  waters  of  these  two  great  rivers. 

The  mound  of  Tel-Loh,  "The  Mound  of 
the  Idol,"  formed  part  of  the  royal  quarter  of 
the  ancient  city,  rising  at  this  point  forty  feet 
above  the  plain. 

It  was  in  this  locality  that,  in  1880-1881,  M. 
de  Sarzec,  French  consul  at  Bagdad,  who  was 
carrying  on  excavations  in  this  region  under 
the  direction  of  the  French  government,  came 
upon  ten  statues  in  the  ruins  of  a  very  ancient 
structure. 

This  proved  to  be  the  royal  residence  of  an 
ancient  king  of  Zirgul,  the  patesi,  or  priest- 
king  Gudea,  whose  date  is  fixed  by  various 
authorities  at  about  4800  B.  C. 

The    statues  were  nearly   life  size,  and  all 


ATMCWS  i 


sine*  2"' 


*$n$BE$ath  or  Jhe  Ajlfhrbet  . 


s 


! 


were  headless.  Two  heads  soon  after  were 
found  in  the  ruins,  one  of  them  turbaned  and 
the  other  uncovered  and  shaved,  supposed  to 
represent  the  king  as  priest. 

The  type  of  feature  reproduced  in  these  finely 
sculptured  heads  is  unmistakably  Turanian, 
of  the  Tartar  branch  of  this  great  family,  while 
the  turban,  another  characteristic  indication  in 
costume,  might  serve  for  a  copy  in  sculpture 
of  the  head  dress  worn  by  some  living  repre- 
sentative of  this  race  in  central  Asia  at  the 
present  day. 

All  these  statues  were  inscribed;  nine  of  them 
with  memorials  of  Gudea,  and  the  tenth  of  Ur- 
bahu,  an  earlier  king  who  ruled  in  Zirgul  be- 
fore Gudea. 

The  ruins  of  his  palace  were  found  by  M .  de 
Sarzec  below  the  palace  of  Gudea,  and  also  the 
foundations  of  an  ancient  pyramid  temple  first 
erected  by  Urbahu  and  rebuilt  by  Gudea. 

The  inscriptions  were  in  very  archaic  cunei- 
form and  were  incised  upon  the  robes  of  the 
figures.  Upon  the  principal  statue  of  Gudea 
were  inscribed  three  hundred  and  thirty-six 
lines  of  writing,  divided  into  nine  columns. 
About  one  hundred  and  thirty  characters  are 
used,  and  these  texts  represent  the  longest  of 
the  ancient  cuneiform  writings  found. 

The  material  of  the  statues  is  a  peculiar  var- 
iety of  granite,  a  dark  green  diorite,  one  of  the 


vV^ 
"•*&&&> 


$*r*tHE  [PRTH  ^F^HE^LFHRBE 


IT 


V« 


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"%iegsfi 


hardest  of  stones.  This  was  nowhere  to  be 
found  in  Mesopotamia.  So  far  as  known,  it 
only  appears  in  the  peninsula  of  Sinai. 

Again,  the  facility  and  skill  in  the  manipu- 
lation of  the  material  has  indicated  that  the 
tools  used  for  the  work  must  have  been  of  the 
hardest  metals.  They  are  supposed  to  have 
been  of  the  hardest  bronze.  But  this  presup- 
poses an  amazing  antiquity  for  the  practice  of 
metallurgy. 

The  replies  to  the  question,  from  whence  the 
bronze?  are  now  abundant,  and  come  from  a 
variety  of  sources,  but  the  testimony  from  the 
inscriptions  of  the  statues  is  the  most  direct 
and  ample,  opening  before  us  a  commercial 
intercourse  between  nations  and  people  of  these 
regions  scarcely  suspected  of  such  very  remote 
dates. 

There  are  indications  that  even  in  these  early 
days  tin  from  Cornwall  was  exported  to  these 
far  off  regions. 

The  inscriptions  relate  chiefly  to  the  build- 
ing of  a  pyramid  temple  by  Urbahu,  and  on 
the  Gudea  statues  to  the  rebuilding  of  the  tem- 
ple by  this  later  prince. 

Referring  constantly  to  himself  as  patesi,  or 
priest-king,  he  says  that  for  this  purpose  his 
God,  Nin  Girsu,  has  opened  the  way  for  him 

from  the  sea  of  the  highlands, ' ' — the  Persian 
Gulf — "to  the  upper  sea,"  the  Mediterranean. 


FfTfr 


f 


9$J9  cXHE  fATH  t)F  JJHE^XFHABET  * 


"  I,"  says  Gudea,  ' '  made  the  lordly  temple 
of  the  God  who  enlightens  the  darkness;  of 
costly  woods  I  made  it  for  him;  with  wood 
from  Lebanon  (Amanus);  wood  of  seventy  and 
fifty  cubits.  I  raised  its  roof  twenty-five  cub- 
its high." 

From  the  copper  and  silver  mines  of  the 
Taurus,  near  "  the  great  pass,"  "  the  gate  of 
Syria,"  copper  was  brought  for  the  great  pil- 
lars. Marble  also  from  the  "Mountain  of 
Canaan,"  (Tidalum),  in  Phoenicia,  for  the 
foundations.  He  sent  ships  to  upper  Egypt, 
where  gold  was  obtained  for  the  porch  of  the 
temple.  "  To  the  country  of  Gubi  and  to  the 
country  of  Nituk  which  possesses  every  kind 
of  tree,  vessels  to  be  laden  with  all  sorts  of 
trees  for  Sippara  I  have  sent." 

Sippara,  "The  City  of  the  Bright  Flame," 
was  another  name  by  which  Zirgul  was  known . 
Reference  to  this  comes  in  the  inscriptions 
concerning  the  '  'God  who  enlightens  the  dark- 
ness." 

Then  of  his  statues  he  says:  "Strong  stone 
being  brought  from  Magan  (Sinaitic  peninsula) 
I  made  an  image  therewith  that  my  name  may 
be  remembered  gloriously." 

Again  of  this  statue  he  says:  "  Neither  in 
silver,  nor  in  copper,  nor  in  tin,  nor  in  bronze 
let  any  one  undertake  the  execution.  An  im- 
age yielding  none  of  these  no  man  will  demand 


73 


^^EPaTH^FtHE,^I^HABEt^ 


r^ 


\s 


as  spoil;  made  of  hard  stone  may  it  remain  in 
the  place  thereof,  forever.' ■ 

These  statues  thus  had  a  peculiar  religious 
^  J  significance.  Placed  in  the  sacred  temple,  al- 
ways before  the  god  to  whose  service  they 
were  dedicated,  they  were  supposed  to  repre- 
sent the  king  constantly  in  life,  and  like  the 
11  Ka  "  statues  of  the  Egyptian  kings,  to  be 
the  residence  of  the  soul  of  the  departed  prince 
which  was  thus  ever  reverently  before  his  god. 
Thus  we  can  understand  the  terrible  curse  pro- 
nounced by  Gudea  upon  whosoever  should  re- 
move this  statue  from  its  place. 

This  and  the  companion  statues  from  Tel- 
Loh,  were  nevertheless  sent  to  Paris  and  placed 
in  the  Louvre,  where  they  will  receive  more 
distinction  than  has  been  accorded  them  for 
ages.  Perhaps  this,  and  also  the  fact  that  the 
inscriptions  on  them  could  not  be  read  until 
they  were  placed  where  competent  Assyriolo- 
gists  could  have  access  to  them,  may  induce 
the  Ka  of  Gudea  to  revoke  his  maledictions 
should  they  threaten  this  later  disturber  of  his 
repose. 

However  this  may  be,  the  view  thus  given 
of  this  far  off  time,  of  which  we  have  no  trace 
in  history,  is  one  of  the  most  interesting  archae- 
ological discoveries  of  the  century. 

Here,  long  ages  before  the  time  of  Hiram, 
king  of  Tyre,  the  friend  of  David  and  Solo 

I 


f 

i 


I 


If 


» 


ATHENS' 


m    Mr  J 


*I2*  jXHE  f ATH  «?T  ^HE  KXFHiVBET 


S 


[1 

T 

in? 
I" 

7 
E 


mon;  long  ages  even  before  the  days  of  Abra- 
ham, the  ships  of  Gudea  were  navigating  the 
seas  from  the  trading  ports  of  Ur  and  Eridu, 
then  at  the  mouth  of  the  Euphrates  on  the  Per- 
sian Gulf;  coasting  down  the  shores  of  the 
Arabian  peninsula,  which  they  circumnavi- 
gated, into  the  waters  of  the  Red  Sea;  sailing 
northward  to  Magan,  "the  enclosed  port,"  on 
the  peninsula  of  Sinai,  where  the  diorite  for 
the  statues  was  obtained,  and  perhaps  copper 
also  from  the  Wady  Magarah,  "  the  land  of 
bronze;"  then  to  various  trading  ports  of  the 
Egyptian  coasts,  for  gold  from  Meroe,  and  for 
timber  from  Ethiopia,  and  then  for  the  return 
voyage. 

Other  confirmation  of  the  trade  communica- 
tions of  southern  Mesopotamia  with  the  penin- 
sula of  Sinai  appears  in  the  beautiful  statue  of 
Kephren,  the  builder  of  the  second  pyramid, 
now  in  the  Boulak  museum.  This  statue  was 
recently  exhumed  from  the  sands  of  the  desert 
near  the  great  Sphynx  in  Egypt,  and  is  of  stone 
so  similar  to  the  diorite  of  the  Tel-Eoh  statues  i  ^ 
that  it  is  evident  they  were  both  obtained  from 
the  same  source. 

We  know  in  this  connection,  that  Seneferu, 
a  predecessor  of  Kephren,  had  conquered  and 
held  in  possession  ^the  Sinaitic  peninsula  with 
a  strong  garrison  of  Egyptian  troops,  which 
were  maintained  here  during  his  reign  and  the 


75 


Y- 


^rC> 


^p°* 


-*-£, 


$*|EH£  [PATH  ^F$HEgOPHABE 


P 


^  *  *. 


-V^ 


^"v 


.' 


-^>^- 


g&^gsM^* 


reign  of  his  immediate  successors;  that  under 
this  protection  the  fine  stone  of  this  region  was 
quarried,  and  that  at  Wady  Margarah  the  rich 
mines  of  copper,  turquoise  and  other  precious 
stones  were  worked. 

Another  evidence  of  the  contact  of  Gudea 
with  Egypt  is  the  fact  that  on  the  lap  of  the 
principal  statue  of  Gudea  the  plan  of  the  city 
is  carved,  and  the  scale  of  measurement  used 
is  the  "  pyramid  inch,"  instead  of  the  Baby- 
lonian or  Chaldean. 

Aside  from  this,  the  finish,  detail  and  work- 
manship of  the  Tel-L,oh  statues  is  so  similar 
in  style  and  character  to  the  statue  of  Kephren 
that  they  all  suggest  the  same  influence  and 
the  same  school  of  sculpture. 

There  are  many  evidences  from  other  sources 
of  the  commercial  intercourse  between  the  Bab- 
ylonians and  Egyptians  at  these  early  dates, 
and  it  is  probable  that  the  cities  of  Eridu  and 
Ur  may  have  maintained  the  same  relations  in 
the  prehistoric  commerce  of  the  Persian  Gulf 
which  obtained  in  later  times  with  Tyre  and 
Sidon  on  the  Mediterranean.  The  commercial 
horizon  thus  opening  before  us  is  a  broad  one 
but  is  constantly  extending. 

The  natural  depressions  of  the  Mesopotamian 
valley  extend  from  the  Persian  Gulf  northerly 
and  northwesterly,  thence  through  the  Orontes 
valley  to  the   Mediterranean.     In  prehistoric 


i 

I 


mpa  ±HE#ATH  0F  Jhe  Axfhrbet  , 


7 


times  and  for  long  ages  this  was  ' '  the  highway 
of  nations,"  by  the  great  rivers,  the  Tigris 
and  Euphrates,  from  sea  to  sea,  the  chief  trade 
route  between  India  and  the  western  coasts  of 
Asia  Minor. 

Solomon  is  said  to  have  founded  Tadmor  in 
the  Desert  for  the  extensive  trade  from  the 
Euphrates,  by  Damascus  to  Jerusalem,  whence 
the  rich  stuffs  and  spices  from  India  were  con- 
veyed. 

Later  on,  Nebuchadnezzer  established  the 
port  of  Teredon,  on  the  Persian  Gulf,  for  the 
commerce  brought  from  the  southern  seas  des- 
tined for  the  great  waterways,  the  Tigris  and 
Euphrates,  northwards. 

These  facts  are  comparatively  modern  histo- 
ry to  Gudea  and  his  days,  when  the  waters  of 
the  Persian  Gulf  washed  the  shores  at  Eridu, 
while  ships  from  India,  Ceylon  and  the  differ- 
ent trading  ports  on  the  Red  Sea  unloaded  their 
cargoes  on  the  docks  of  the  great  maritime  city 
of  Ur  of  the  Chaldees. 

The  city  of  Ur,  then  not  far  from  the  mouth 
of  the  Euphrates,  was  situated  upon  its  west- 
ern shores,  and  was  at  this  time,  and  later,  a 
city  of  great  commercial  and  political  import- 
ance, and  the  first  capital  of  the  kings  of  all 
Chaldea. 

As  in  all  maritime  cities  trading  with  distant 
countries,  people  of  various  nationalities  were 


•tar 


ptjjUdZ  ^FaTH^F  jJg^OJPHRBETj 


/ 


gathered  here.  It  is  not  improbable  that  the 
name  of  "Ur  of  the  Chaldees"  may  have  ref- 
erence to  certain  families  of  foreign  stock,  the 
"Kaldai"  or  "Kaldi"  who  inhabited  the  re- 
gions round  and  about  Ur,  perhaps  nomadic 
tribes  from  Arabia.  Other  authorities,  how- 
ever, speak  of  these  '  'Kaldai"  as  a  priest  class, 
magicians  and  astrologers,  possessing  strange 
learning  and  speaking  a  peculiar  language;  as 
representatives  also  of  the  primitive  inhabitants 
of  the  country,  filling  a  sacred  office  and  con- 
sulted by  the  king  on  all  religious  subjects. 

The  divinity  of  this  city  was  Hurki,  or  Sin, 
the  great  Moon  God,  and  here  may  be  seen  at 
the  present  day  on  the  mounds  of  Mugheir  the 
remains  of  an  ancient  temple  dedicated  to  this 
deity,  rising  to  the  height  of  seventy  feet  above 
the  plain.  This  was  founded  by  Urukh,  or 
Ur  Gur,  one  of  the  earliest  known  of  the  kings 
of  united  Sumir,  who  exercised  dominion  over 
the  greater  portion  of  southern  Mesopotamia. 

The  remains  of  temples  built  by  him  are 
found  in  all  the  larger  of  the  ancient  cities  of 
this  region  and  the  enormous  proportions  of 
these  and  their  number  have  won  for  him  the 
name  of  ''The  Builder."  It  is  evident  that 
this  king  had  at  his  command  vast  resources 
in  human  skill  and  industry. 

The  Bowariyeh  mound  at  Warka  is  described 
as  two  hundred  feet  square  and  one  hundred 


\pi  $HE  f aTH  ^F$HE^(XFH2VB£T  ♦ 


II 


feet  hign  and  that  above  thirty  million  bricks 
must  have  gone  into  its  construction . 

Other  structures  on  a  similar  scale,  the  re- 
mains of  which  are  found  at  Erech,  Larsa, 
Calneh,  Ur,  Nippur  and  other  cities  in  this 
region,  show  the  magnitude  of  his  resources 
and  the  extent  of  his  authority.  These  build- 
ings are,  for  the  most  part,  temples  dedicated 
to  the  tutelar  divinity  of  each  special  locality, 
as  at  L,arsa,  where  he  erected  a  temple  to  the 
Sun  God,  and  at  Calneh  to  Belus. 

The  distinguishing  features  of  his  structures 
which  were  continued  in  the  later  Babylonian 
temples,  are  the  rectangular  base,  the  peculiar 
orientation  of  these  with  their  angles  to  the 
cardinal  points,  the  rise  in  receding  stages, 
the  sloped  walls,  the  buttresses  for  increased 
strength,  the  drains  for  the  ventilation  of  the 
walls,  the  external  staircases  for  ascent  and  the 
ornamental  shrine  crowning  the  whole. 

The  temple  founded  by  Ur  Gur  at  Ur,  was 
originally  of  great  size.  It  rose  in  three  reced- 
ing stages  to  a  vast  height,  where,  upon  the 
final  platform,  the  temple  was  placed,  contain- 
ing the  statue  of  the  Moon  God,  which  was 
thus  visible  to  a  great  distance  from  the  sur- 
rounding plain. 

The  lower  stages  of  this  structure  were  built 
of  large  bricks  laid  with  bitumen.  In  the  up- 
per stages  the  masonry  is  cemented  with  mortar. 


rr 


in  £he  S'ath  ofiheAjlthrbxt^ 


s, 


4" 


It  appears  that  this  was  the  work  of  two 
monarchs,  Ur  Gur,  and  his  son,  Dungi,  who 
as  his  successor,  completed  here,  as  elsewhere, 
the  buildings  unfinished  by  his  father.  The 
names  of  both  kings  are  inscribed  upon  the 
bricks  in  the  structure,  and  on  the  signet  and 
clay  cylinders  found  in  the  ruins. 

These  kings,  are,  however,  of  later  date  than 
Gudea.  In  their  day  the  priest  kings  of  one 
city  had  become  kings  of  many,  gathering  var- 
ious localities  in  Sumir  under  their  dominion. 

Among  the  discoveries  obtained  during  the 
explorations  at  Nippur,  by  the  Babylonian  ex- 
pedition of  the  University  of  Pennsylvania, 
there  are  many  relics  of  Dungi  and  Urea,  or 
Ur  Gur. 

At  this  time,  there  are  evidences  of  an  or- 
ganized priesthood  in  whose  hands  were  placed 
the  religious  interests  of  the  king  and  the  peo- 
ple, who  proclaimed  to  them  the  will  of  the 
gods  as  observed  in  the  relations  of  the  planets 
and  the  stars. 

In  more  primitive  times  the  religion  of  this 
people  was  pure  Shamanism,  a  worship  of  de- 
mons and  the  evil  influences  of  nature,  a  reli- 
gion common  to  all  Turanian  people  even  at 
the  present  day. 

Very  early,  however,  in  the  history  of  this 

people,  a  recognition  of  the  benign  influences 

in  nature  is  apparent,  and  while  the  older  be- 

: ..   ,  .    .      \ 


> 


ITT" 


ATHENS 

.  lfnr  J 


llJV£pE?ilTH  $F!JEE£U*HJ«ET 


#-~V 


lief  never  became  entirely  extinct,  yet  the  pro- 
pitious influences  were  regarded  as  attributes 
of  the  higher  gods. 

The  sorcerers  and  magicians  held  a  power 
of  their  own,  but  they  were  subject  to  the 
greater  divinities  by  whose  influence  their  mis- 
chiefs could  be  averted. 

Whether  this  religious  development  was 
brought  about  by  contact  with  another  race 
possessing  nobler  religious  ideals,  or  was  a  de- 
velopment through  their  scientific  applications 
of  astronomy  to  astrology,  it  is  impossible  to 
say.  However  this  may  be,  these  higher  reli- 
gious conceptions  had  developed  very  early 
into  a  cult  which  became  the  inheritance  of 
later  races  that  came  into  contact  with  them. 

The  peculiar  and  distinct  civilization  of  these 
primitive  Babylonians  must  have  continued 
through  long  ages.  Their  system  of  writing 
had  developed  from  the  simple  pictorial  lines 
into  the  cuneiform  and  these  signs  had  become 
phonetic,  expressing  sound  as  well  as  ideas. 
They  had  also  developed  a  syllabary. 

Finally,  there  are  evidences  of  the  gradual 
increase  among  them  of  another  race  of  people. 
This  was  a  Semitic  people  who  seem  at  first  to 
have  established  themselves  in  northern  Baby- 
lonia in  the  kingdom  of  Accad,  finally  becom- 
ing supreme  in  the  land. 

About  3800  B.  C,  the  kingdoms  of  Accad 


$*r  Jhe  jath*?f£he.&i-phkbe: 


and  Sumir  are  found  united  under  Sargon  I,  a 
Semitic  king.  There  are  indications  of  Acca- 
dian  or  Sumerian  kings  who  ruled  over  the 
separate  kingdoms  of  Accad  and  Sumir  at  ear- 
lier and  later  dates,  but  the  main  course  of 
testimony  after  Sargon  I  tells  of  Semitic  kings 
as  rulers  in  northern  Babylonia,  or  Accad,  and 
a  Semitic  influence  dominant  there. 

The  influence  of  such  close  social  contact 
brought  about  material  changes  in  the  life, 
literature  and  language  of  both  people. 

In  Accad,  which  came  first  under  Semitic 
influence,  the  old  language  rapidly  declined. 
In  Sumir,  or  southern  Mesopotamia,  which 
continued  much  longer  under  the  ancient  rule 
and  influence,  the  old  language  held  its  own 
down  to  comparatively  recent  times. 

The  Semites,  however,  seem  to  have  received 
from  the  Accadians  more  than  they  gave.  The 
arts  and  sciences  and  civilization  of  this  ancient 
people  became  the  arts  and  sciences  and  civili- 
zation of  the  Semitic  Assyrians  and  Babylo- 
nians. 

They  appropriated  the  religion  and  gods  of 
these  early  Chaldeans.  They  became  heirs  of 
their  literature  and  they  adopted  their  system 
of  writing. 

The  most  curious  instance  in  these  various 
adoptions  of  the  Semites  was  the  Sumerian 
syllabary. 

r 


ATMEIj 


a 


I 

? 

'TT? 
111 


JN  XHE  f  ATH  0r^HE  jaLFHng£T» 

Now  in  applying  the  syllabary  of  one  lan- 
guage to  the  uses  of  another,  it  might  be  ex- 
pected that  the  signs  expressing  a  certain  syl- 
labic sound  in  one  language  would  be  used  to 
express  the  syllabic  sounds  in  the  other.  This 
however,  was  not  the  case  in  this  instance. 
When  the  Semites  adopted  the  old  Accadian 
syllabary  they  used  these  signs  quite  as  often 
to  express  the  Semitic  sounds  of  the  original 
ideographs  as  for  syllabic  signs. 

As  an  instance  of  this  curious  example  of 
polyphony,  Mr.  Taylor  gives  the  cuneiform 
sign  which  in  the  primitive  pictorial  form  rep- 
resented an  ear.  The  name  of  ear  in  Accadian 
is  pi.  This  sign  had  another  syllabic  value, 
signifying  a  drop  of  water.  When  the  Semites 
adopted  this  sign  to  their  uses  they  retained 
the  phonetic  value  of  the  sign  as  pi.  They, 
however,  used  this  sign  also  to  express  the 
sound  of  the  Semitic  words,  "eznu,"  an  ear, 
and  "giltanu,"  a  drop  of  water. 

This  use  of  signs  is  the  reverse  of  homophon- 
ism,  where  by  the  use  of  one  sign  many  words  J\^  |J 
having  the  same  sound  are  expressed.  It  is 
an  instance  of  polyphonism  where  one  sign  is 
used  to  express  words  having  different  sounds. 
The  result  was,  however,  the  same.  It  led  in 
both  cases  to  the  increase  of  determinatives, 
and  other  explanatory  signs  to  indicate  the 
word  to  be  expressed  by  the  sign. 


\S 


/-.> 


^<^^- 


&^£&£ti^ 


^^E^ATH^FfjgE^LgHRBK^ 


The  use  of  ideographs  as  determinatives  was 
evidently  suggested  by  the  Sumerian  syllabary, 
but  the  language  of  the  Sumerians  was  simple, 
requiring  fewer  signs  to  express  sounds.  On 
the  contrary,  the  Semitic  language  was  more 
copious,  possessing  a  greater  variety  of  syllabic 
utterances. 

It  will  thus  be  seen  that  when  the  decipher- 
ment of  the  Assyrian  cuneiform  was  first  at- 
tempted, scholars  could  not  for  a  time  master 
the  curious  complications  they  found. 

The  Assyrian  syllabary  could  only  be  ex- 
plained as  a  foreign  importation,  not  as  an  ev- 
olution from  a  Semitic  speech.  As  Professor 
Sayce  says  :  ' '  Like  the  discoverers  of  the 
planet  Uranus,  they  had  to  presuppose  another 
language  to  account  for  its  origin  and  appear- 
ance." 

The  decipherment  of  the  older  cuneiform 
soon  after,  and  the  discovery  of  the  bilingual 
texts,  where  copies  from  the  old  Sumerian  or- 
iginals were  placed  side  by  side  with  the  Se- 
mitic translations,  soon  explained  the  sources 
of  confusion,  the  original  values  of  these  signs 
and  their  application  to  another  language. 


%*£  &HE  ^ATH  ^T^imAjLS'HJPiBZT^ 


CHAPTER  VII.      - 

F  the  great  rulers  in  Mesopotamia, 
}  both  Turanian  and  Semitic,  who 
>£^fe<£)  stand  out  most  distinctly  in  the  re- 
cords of  this  remote  past,  are  the  Turanian 
prince,  Gudea,  about  4800  B.  C,  the  great 
Sargon  I  and  his  son,  Naram  Sin,  Semitic 
princes,  both  to  whom  the  date  3800  B.  C,  is 
accorded,  and  the  Arabian  prince,  Khammur- 
agas,  or  Hammurabi,  the  founder  of  the  city 
of  Babylon  and  contemporary  with  Abraham. 
The  date  now  given  for  Sargon  I,  is  3800  B.  C. 
Long  before  this  date  various  families  of  Se- 
mitic race  had  evidently  made  their  appear- 
ance in  the  land  ;  Phoenician  traders  from  the 
Persian  Gulf,  or  nomadic  tribes  from  the  Ara- 
bian borders,  Semitic  families,  attracted  hither 
by  the  rich  fertility  of  the  Mesopotamian  plains. 
These  were  Sabeans,  perhaps,  with  a  faint,  far- 
off  remembrance  of  the  One  God,  ruler  and 
creator  of  the  universe,  but  now  worshippers 
of  the  stars,  the  abodes  of  ministering  spirits. 
At  this  time  in  Sargon 's  reign,  long  before 
the  date  accorded  to  Urea,  The  Builder,  in  the 
new  empire  arising  in  Accad,  we  find  the  early 


beginnings  of  the  Assyrian  people.  There  was 
as  yet  no  Assyria  or  Assyrians.  The  ancient 
Turanian  capital  of  Accad  was  named  Aushar 
or  Asshar,  signifying  "  watered  plain,"  but 
this  had  not  yet  given  its  name  to  the  region 
or  country. 

Sargon's  new  capital  was  Agane,  or  Agade 
of  Accad,  while  Nineveh,  "the  mighty"  of 
the  coming  kingdom,  was  as  yet  but  a  collec- 
tion of  fishermen's  huts  on  the  swift-flowing 
Tigris. 

As  yet  there  was  no  kingdom  of  Babylonia, 
and  no  city  of  Babylon.  This  region  was  sit- 
uated in  the  northern  portion  of  Sumir,  south 
of  Accad,  and  was  at  first  designated  by  the 
Turanian  name,  M  Gar  Dunyash,"  or  "  Kar 
Dunyash,"  the  "Garden  of  the  god,  Dun- 
yash." 

The  site  of  the  future  great  capital  was  then 
called  either  by  its  more  ancient  Turanian 
name,  "  Tin-Tir-ki,"  signifying  The  Tree  of 
Life,  or  its  later  Accado-Sumerian  name,  '  'Ka- 
Dimmirra,"  Gate  of  God.  In  later  times  this 
name  translated  into  Semitic  was  Babilu — 
Babylon — which  finally  became  the  name  of 
the  whole  of  Sumir  south  to  the  Persian  Gulf, 
as  Babylonia. 

At  the  date  of  Sargon,  of  Accad,  Sumir,  or 
southern  Mesopotamia,  was  chiefly  Turanian. 
The  displacement  of  the    Mongol  peoples  by 


SlDO 


i  atm  em 


m$N $HE t ATH  OP  3JEIE  ^XFHIVBET 


II 


the  Semites  in  this  region  had  not  at  this  time 
obtained.  That  fusion  of  races  which  so  dis- 
tinctly distinguished  the  Babylonians  of  the 
later  era  from  the  more  purely  Semitic  Assyr- 
ians had  scarcely  begun. 

The  Babylonians,  as  a  distinct  people  under 
this  name,  do  not  make  their  appearance  on 
the  stage  of  history  until  over  fourteen  centu- 
ries later  than  Sargon,  in  the  time  or  a  little 
earlier  than  Hammurabi,  or  Khammuragas, 
about  2300  B.  C,  at  the  date  accorded  to  Abra- 
ham. 

It  is  probable  that  Semitic  people  had  settled 
in  this  region  long  previous  to  the  reign  of 
Sargon ,  but  it  was  not  until  the  period  of  Ham- 
murabi, who  at  first  was  simply  king  of  Gar- 
Dunyash  that  the  Semitic  element  dominated 
in  Babylonia. 

This  powerful  prince,  who  became  in  time 
master  of  all  southern  Mesopotamia,  was  the 
founder  of  the  city  of  Babylon,  from  which  the 
country  and  people  received  the  names  Baby- 
lonia and  Babylonians. 

Returning  to  Sargon,  we  find  in  the  Nine- 
vite  remains  that  in  this  earlier  time  he  had 
founded  one  of  the  most  famous  libraries  of 
ancient  Mesopotamia.  This  was  at  his  new 
city  of  Agane,  or  Agade.  The  literature  of 
this  library  was  entirely  based  on  that  of  an- 
cient Sumir.    It  consisted  completely  of  transla- 


-Sr 


87 


tious  of  these  older  books  into  what  we  may 
call  Assyrian,  or  were  copies  of  the  older  books 
in  the  old  language  of  Sumir. 

This  older  language  was  to  these  Semitic 
Ass}rrians  the  language  of  the  learned,  the  clas- 
sic tongue  of  the  time,  bearing  the  same  rela- 
tion to  the  Assyrian  as  do  Greek  and  Latin  to 
modern  literature.  It  was  then  even  more  im- 
portant to  the  Semitic  student  as  it  included 
all  of  learning  which  in  Mesopotamia  had  as 
yet  obtained  literary  form. 

These  ancient  texts  were  copied  on  clay  tab- 
lets with  translations  from  the  language  of  Su- 
mir into  Semitic,  either  between  the  lines  or 
the  text  in  the  old  language  in  one  column 
and  the  translation  opposite. 

For  further  aids  to  students,  vocabularies 
were  compiled,  giving  the  Accadian  word  and 
the  Assyrian  translation;  also,  syllabic  forms, 
and  it  is  by  these  wonderful  literary  aids,  es- 
pecially wonderful  when  we  consider  their  an- 
tiquity, that  scholars  of  to-day  are  able  to  read 
this  ancient  Turanian  speech  as  readily  as  the 
Semitic  Assyrian  language  of  Sargon's  reign. 

The  systematic  methods  adopted  in  this  li- 
brary are  also  remarkable .  Doubtless  Sargon ' s 
librarians  introduced  ideas  of  their  own  in  the 
arrangement  of  this  literature,  but  they  had 
evidently  adopted  methods  long  in  use  in  the 
more  ancient  libraries   of   Krech,  Larsa   and 


'il*  ±HE  PATH  0r$HE^LFHRB£T  . 


'12 


other  cities  of  southern  Mesopotamia.  As 
instances  of  this  literary  undertaking  the  great 
work  on  astronomy  and  astrology  called  "The 
Observations  of  Bel,"  which  long  ages  after 
Berosius  translated  into  Greek,  was  by  order 
of  Sargon  compiled  for  his  library-  It  consist- 
ed of  seventy-two  books,  and  a  certain  place  in 
the  library  was  set  apart  for  this.  These  tab- 
lets were  arranged  and  numbered  according  to 
the  subject.  A  catalogue  of  these  was  also 
prepared,  giving  the  number  of  the  tablets  as 
arranged  under  the  subjects. 

Other  literary  documents  from  this  collection 
are  The  Story  of  Creation,  in  prose  and  verse; 
The  Deluge  Story,  and  Adventures  of  Izdubar, 
the  famous  Nimrod  of  Hebrew  tradition. 

When  the  student  wished  for  any  special  tab- 
let or  subject,  he  was  required  by  the  librarian 
to  consult  the  catalogue  and  to  write  down  the 
number  of  the  book  he  wished  for,  when  it 
would  be  given  to  him.  The  librarian  of  to- 
day, to  whom  the  same  system  and  methods 
are  so  familiar,  can  scarcely  claim  these  as 
modern  improvements,  but  may  well  exclaim 
with  the  philosopher  of  old,  ' '  there  is  no  new 
thing  under  the  sun." 

Another  great  work,  prepared  for  the  library 
of  Sargon,  of  Agade,  was  a  theological  collec- 
tion in  three  books  and  two  hundred  tablets. 
This  consisted  of  magical  texts  and  incantations 


s 


a  l\ 


from  the  primitive  religion  of  Turanian  Chal- 
dea,  which  still  held  power  and  influence  as 
magic  and  divination.  It  included  also  the 
literature  of  the  later  development  of  the  Su- 
merians  into  higher  spiritual  conceptions. 

This  literature  of  the  later  period  comprised 
hymns  of  praise,  invocations  to  the  gods,  and 
penitential  psalms  which  in  spirit  and  form 
,bear  a  remarkable  resemblance  to  the  confes- 
sions of  the  later  Hebrew  psalmist. 

Perhaps  we  may  trace  in  this  a  contact  with 
Semitic  thought  and  influence  long  before  the 
Semites  appear  as  an  established  people  in  the 
land. 

There  are  two  distinct  periods  in  the  religious 

development  of  the  Turanians  of  Chaldea,  the 

3 era  of  Shamanism  or  demon  worship,  and  later 

Sabeanism,  the  deification  of  the  planets  and 

the  stars  or  the  benign  influence  of  nature. 

As  early  as  Gudea  they  had  entered  upon 
this  later  period  of  religious  development,  and 
now,  under  the  influence  of  Sargon  occurred  a 
blending  of  these  systems  with  Semitic  con- 
ceptions which  continued  the  established  reli- 
gion of  the  Assyrians  and  Babylonians  to  the 
latest  times. 
£1  The  latent  tendencies  of  the  Semitic  mind 
seem  to  have  been  towards  monotheism.  While 
this  did  not  prevent  their  recognition  of  the 
gods  of  the  nations  with  whom  they  came  in 


1 


TVH 

Sine 


Ml 


At  mem; 


*$N  j±BE$ ATH  0r$H£^FHH»ET> 


s 


contact,  and  their  frequent  adoption  of  these 
as  objects  of  worship,  this  tendency  is  yet 
manifest. 

With  the  later  Assyrians,  they  united  in  the 
adoption  of  their  national  deity,  Asshur;  with 
the  Moabites,  in  Chemosh;  with  the  Hebrews, 
in  Klohim,  or  Yahveh;  and  with  them  all,  the 
Supreme  One  who  united  in  Himself  the  great 
attributes  of  all  the  gods,  the  Creator  of  all 
things,  the  Arbiter  of  all  human  events. 

The  Turanian  Chaldeans,  on  the  other  hand, 
were  unreserved  polytheists.  Their  gods  were 
as  the  sands  of  the  sea  for  number.  Each  city, 
with  its  surrounding  locality,  had  its  special 
god,  and  the  greater  the  city  the  greater  the 
god,  the  more  magnificent  the  temple  dedicated 
to  his  worship,  and  the  more  powerful  its 
priesthood. 

This  was  the  case  in  the  city  of  Ur,  where 
Hurud,  or  Sin,  the  Moon  God,  was  the  local 
divinity.  There  were  other  moon  gods  in  other 
localities,  each  worshipped  in  a  special  way, 
but  the  Moon  God  of  Ur  was  greater  than  all. 

Thus  it  was  with  the  worship  of  Ea,  the  god 
of  the  deep,  the  local  god  of  the  more  ancient 
city  of  Eridu;  and  again  of  Anu,  the  Sky  God 
of  Erech. 

This  organization  of  the  Chaldean  Pantheon 
by  Sargon  was  simply  the  orderly  arrangement 
of  these  into  greater  and  lesser  divinities,  the 


^ 
■W 


wA^,^ 


5^? 


>-.-= 


Ym2& 


pHLRZ  [PATH  ^F^HE^LFHRBF 


^^sa* 


-*.  -v 


-^>^- 


blending  of  these  separate  local  cults  into  one 
general  system. 

At  the  head  of  this  pantheon  was  placed  the 
Semitic  Illu,  or  El,  signifying  God,  and  whose 
name  is  the  root  word  of  the  Hebrew  Elohim 
and  the  Arabian  Allah. 

Next  in  order,  was  a  triad  of  great  gods, 
Turanian  divinities,  consisting  of  Anu,  the  Sky 
God  of  Erech;  Bel,  or  Mul-il,  the  local  god  of 
Nippur,  the  L,ord  of  the  lower  world,  and  last 
in  this  triad,  of  Ea,  of  Eridu,  the  god  of  the 
great  waters,  and  creator  of  the  Accadean  race. 
The  position  of  these  gods  in  this  triad  is 
explained  by  local  circumstances.  At  the  time 
of  this  new  arrangement  of  the  Chaldean  dei- 
ties Erech  was  a  prominent  city  of  southern 
Mesopotamia.  It  had  a  richly  endowed  library, 
perhaps  the  greatest  collection  of  literary  treas- 
ures at  this  time  known  in  the  ancient  world. 
This  was  greatly  enlarged  by  Sargon,  who, 
perhaps  from  motives  of  policy  towards  his 
Chaldean  subjects,  thought  it  wisest  not  to  en- 
rich his  library  at  Agane  at  the  expense  of 
this  the  oldest  of  the  libraries  of  southern  Mes- 
opotamia. 

It  is  also  possible  that  some  of  the  literary 
treasures  obtained  by  him  in  other  decaying 
cities  of  this  region  may  have  been  placed  in 
the  library  at  Erech  for  the  same  reason,  as  it 
offered  better  opportunities  for  the  safe  deposit 


[I  J*  LXH£  *ATH  (0r$HE^LFHABET^ 


li 


TT 


TT 

| 

T 

hi 


of  these  ancient  documents.  At  any  rate,  we 
find  that  when  Assur-bani-pal  founded  his 
great  library  at  Nineveh  many  centuries  later, 
and  the  ancient  cities  of  Chaldea  were  ran- 
sacked for  their  literary  treasures,  it  was  at 
Erech  that  he  reaped  his  richest  harvest. 

As  suggested,  Erech  was  at  the  time  of  Sar- 
gon's  reformation  of  the  gods  of  Chaldea,  a 
populous  and  wealthy  city.  It  possessed  a 
powerful  priesthood  devoted  to  the  service  of 
Anu,  the  Sky  God,  the  local  god  of  Erech, 
who,  for  these  reasons,  was  placed  first  in  the 
trinity  of  gods,  before  the  more  ancient  and 
sacred  divinities  of  Turanian  Chaldea. 

Nippur,  the  second  capital  of  Chaldea,  was 
also  at  this  time  a  wealthy  and  populous  city. 
Here  was  located  a  temple  to  Belus,  the  older 
Bel,  identical  with  Mul-lil,  the  Eord  of  the 
lower  world,  and  as  the  local  god  of  Nippur, 
Bel  became  the  second  god  in  the  trinity. 

The  most  ancient  and  sacred  of  all  the  gods 
of  ancient  Chaldea,  Ea,  the  god  of  the  great 
waters,  the  local  divinity  of  Eridu,  was  not  to 
be  ignored,  and  was  thus  placed  in  the  trinity 
of  great  gods. 

The  triad  thus  formed  represented  the  gods 
of  the  heavens,  the  lower  world,  and  the  great 
waters.  Below  this  was  another  triad,  con- 
sisting of  Sin,  the  moon;  Samas,  the  sun,  and 
Vul,  the  atmosphere. 


JiYTJHE  PATH  ^F^HE^ULFKUBE 


rir 


^ « » 


-  <•%/ 


mT 


-^y<^^X_r 


Then  followed  other  gods,  representing  vis- 
ible planets,  and  still  below  these  a  host  of  les- 
ser nature  divinities.  The  transformation  of 
some  of  these  gods  under  Semitic  influences, 
and  their  gradiiai  absorption  of  the  attributes 
of  the  older  deities  is  a  curious  study  in  Chal- 
dean mythology. 

It  is  of  special  interest  as  we  find  in  these 
many  familiar  deities  of  Syria,  Palestine,  Egypt 
and  other  countries,  who  had  their  origin  in 
ancient  Chaldea. 

A  prominent  instance  of  this  is  the  rise  of 
Bel-Merodach,  the  great  Baal,  from  a  lesser  to 
one  of  the  greater  gods,  and  whose  cult  extend- 
ed with  the  increase  of  Assyrian  and  Babylo- 
nian power.  When  Bel-Merodach  comes  first 
distinctly  in  view  it  is  as  a  local  god  of  Baby- 
lon. With  the  consolidation  of  all  southern 
Mesopotamia  into  the  Babylonian  empire,  and 
the  establishment  of  Babylon  as  its  capital,  the 
local  god  of  this  city  waxed  great  with  the 
greatness  and  importance  of  his  local  abode. 
This  occurred  under  Hammurabi,  or  Kham- 
muragas,  the  founder  of  the  city  and  the  em- 
pire, about  2356  B.  C. 

The  attributes  of  Bel-Merodach  are  various. 
He  is  the  son  of  Ea,  "  The  first  born  of  the 
gods,"  "  The  benefactor  of  mankind,"  "The 
mediator  between  gods  and  men,4' '  ' '  The  war- 
rior god,  who  leads  the  forces  of  light."    Like 


ri 


ATHCilS 


m    w    i 


IfoT  $HEf! RTH  *>F  JHE^LLFHJVBET 


*>- 


II 


Nin-Girsu,  the  god  of  Gudea,  he  is  the  "Lord 
of  the  pure  flame,  who  conquers  and  puts  to 
flight  the  spirits  of  darkness."  Finally  assum- 
ing the  attributes  of  Samas,  the  Sun  God,  he 
appears  as  the  solar  deity  of  Babylon. 

Among  the  cuneiform  documents  in  the 
British  museum,  there  is  a, group  of  fragments 
known  as  the  Assyrian  Epic  of  Creation.  Por- 
tions of  these  were  first  translated  by  the  late 
George  Smith,  who  directed  attention  to  their 
peculiar  significance.  Other  fragments  have 
since  been  found  and  translated  by  Mr.  Pin- 
ches, producing  the  epic  nearly  complete. 

In  its  present  form,  the  poem  is  probably  of 
the  later  days  of  the  Assyrian  empire.  It  bears 
within  it,  however,  the  embodiment  of  ancient 
Babylonian  legends  of  the  origin  of  things, 
and  is  specially  remarkable  in  certain  similari- 
ties to  the  Hebraic  account  of  creation.  A 
very  great  and  marked  contrast  between  these 
two  narratives  is  that  in  one  case  the  story  of 
creation  is  told  by  a  polytheist,  as  the  effort  of 
many  gods;  in  the  other,  by  an  uncompromis- 
ing monotheist,  who  attributes  the  work  to  a 
decree  of  one  Supreme  God. 

The  Assyrian  version  of  that  portion  of  the 
Hebrew  narrative:  "And  the  Spirit  of  God 
moved  upon  the  waters,  and  God  s"aid,  '  Let 
there  be  light,'  and  there  was  light,'  "  in  the 
Chaldean  epic  is  the  office  of  Bel-Merodach. 


95 


V* 


V 


r^q&^z 


£lflr^tHE  ^FATH  ^F^HE|lLFHJlBE 


~m 


As  he  leads  the  forces  of  light  against  the 
powers  of  darkness  he  enters  into  mortal  com- 
bat with  the  great  dragon,  Tiamat,  the  goddess 
of  chaos  and  darkness.  This  contest  all  the 
great  gods  have  refused  to  attempt.  In  the 
conflict  which  ensues  Merodach  is  victorious, 
vanquishing  and  destroying  the  great  dragon 
of  chaos.  Whereupon  there  was  great  rejoic- 
ing among  the  great  gods.     Then  : — 

They  established  for  him  the  mercy  seat  of 
the  mighty." 

Before  his  fathers  he  seated  himself  for  sov- 
ereignty." 
11  O  Merodach  !  thou  art  glorious  among  the 
great  gods  ! ' ' 

Since  that  day  unchanged  is  thy  command. ' ' 

And  thus  Bel-Merodach,  the  great  son  of  Ea, 
was  enthroned. 

He  never  becomes  the  national  god  of  Chal- 
dea,  as  Asshur  became  to  Syria.  Local  influ- 
ences were  opposed  to  this.  The  local  deities 
of  other  important  cities  of  southern  Mesopo- 
tamia, more  ancient  and  venerated,  maintained 
their  hold  upon  the  affections  of  their  worship- 
pers to  the  last- 

This  was  the  case  with  Mul-lil,  the  local  deity 
of  Nippur,  the  second  in  the  triad  of  great 
gods,  the  older  Bel,  with  whom  Bel-Merodach 
is  sometimes  confounded. 

The  Moon  God  was  to    the  latest   day  the 


i 


* 


T 

« 
I 


m$N  XHE  FATH  (fjrjm|tLrHRBETic> 

favored  divinity  of  Ur  of  the  Chaldees,  and  so 
of  the  local  deities  of  other  Sumerian  cities. 

These  divinities  were  many  of  them  of  great 
antiquity.  They  were  reverenced  in  their  spe- 
cial localities  as  nowhere  else.  Thus  the  in- 
dignation of  the  priesthoods  of  these  local  cults, 
and  of  the  local  aristocracies,  may  well  be  im- 
agined at  the  attempt  of  Nabonidus,  the  latest 
king  of  Babylon,  555-538  B.  C,  to  concentrate 
all  these  local  worships  at  the  city  of  Babylon. 

When  they  saw  their  gods  taken  from  their 
ancient  shrines  and  gathered  at  Babylon  in  the 
great  temple  of  Bel,  as  subordinate  gods  to 
magnify  the  worship  of  Bel,  their  resentment 
ripened  into  secret  intrigue  against  their  king, 
which  resulted  in  the  banishment  of  Nabonidus 
from  his  kingdom,  the  occupation  of  the  throne 
by  Cyrus,  and  finally  the  overthrow  of  the 
Babylonian  empire. 


$1*  [XHEfATH  0r$HE^LLFHRBET  • 


CHAPTER  VIII, 


£G7HIS  latest  king  of  Babylon  is,  how- 
.J>R  ever,  an  interesting  personage.  To 
L-2^£o  him  we  are  indebted  for  many  re- 
cords which  but  for  him  the  archaeologists  of 
this  present  time  would  not  have  recovered. 
He  was  a  zealous  restorer  of  ancient  temples 
and  shrines,  which  in  his  day  had  fallen  into 
decay  through  all  Mesopotamia.  This  seems 
to  have  been  a  duty  enjoined  by  the  gods  upon 
all  kings  of  Chaldea.  But,  whatever  his  mo- 
tive, whether  as  a  fulfillment  of  religious  duty 
or  of  antiquarian  inclinations,  Nabonidus  is 
said  to  have  undertaken  these  restorations  to 
an  extent  no  king  before  him  seems  to  have 
attempted. 

Of  famous  temples  rebuilded  by  him  are 
those  of  the  Moon  God  of  Ur,  andHaran;  also 
of  the  Sun  God  at  Larsa  and  of  Sippara. 

The  custom  of  placing  the  records  of  the 
founder  of  an  edifice  in  chambers  or  cavities  in 
the  foundations  of  the  structure  is  of  immense 
antiquity.  These  records  were  inscribed  gen- 
erally on  clay  cylinders  and  usually  ended  with 
injunctions  to  any  future  king  who  might,  in 


z»^~ 


$2f$BE  ^ATH^FtlHE^LTHABE^ 


W 


rebuilding,  come  upon  the  secret  hiding  place 
of  the  cylinders  that  these  records  should  be 
replaced  in  their  original  depository  with  reli- 
gious rites.  Failing  to  do  this,  the  wrath  of 
the  gods  is  invoked  upon  his  sacreligious  head. 

It  was  in  this  way  that  Nabonidus  came 
upon  some  very  ancient  and  important  docu- 
ments. As  in  all  cases  he  followed  his  discov- 
eries with  the  record  of  the  event  upon  inscrib- 
ed cylinders  deposited  by  him  in  the  founda- 
tions of  the  new  structure,  the  value  of  these 
to  later  explorers  can  scarcely  be  estimated. 

It  was  during  his  excavations  in  the  foun- 
dations of  the  Sun  temple  at  Larsa  that  he 
came  upon  a  cylinder  inscribed  and  deposited 
by  Hammurabi,  or  Khammuragas,  at  the  re- 
building of  a  more  ancient  temple  on  the  same 
site. 

Hammurabi  states  upon  his  cylinder  that 
this  more  ancient  temple  was  founded  by  Urea, 
or  Ur  Gur,  seven  hundred  years  before  his 
time. 

On  annalistic  tablets  of  Babylonian  kings  in 
the  British  Museum,  Khammuragas  is  men- 
tioned and  the  date  accorded  to  him  B.  C. 
2315,  or  the  end  of  his  reign  B.  C.  2259,  which 
gives  the  date  of  Urea,  The  Builder,  as  about 
2959  B.  C. 

The  most  important  of  the  discoveries  of 
Nabonidus,  was,  however,  the  finding  of  the 


iN  THE  f  ATH  0r$HE^XFHRB£T^ 


foundation  cylinder  of  Naram-Sin,  the  son  and 
successor  of  the  great  Sargon  of  Accad. 

This  occurred  at  the  time  of  his  restoration 
of  the  Sun  temple  at  Sippara,  near  the  ancient 
cityofAgane. 

Of  this,  Nabonidus  says  : 

11 1  brought  the  Sun  God  from  his  temple, 
and  placed  him  in  another  house." 

11  I  sought  for  its  old  foundation  stone,  and 
eighteen  cubits  deep — ' ' 

1 '  I  dug  into  the  ground  and  the  foundation 
stone  of  Naram-Sin,  Son  of  Sargon,  which  for 
thirty-two  hundred  years  no  king  who  had 
gone  before  me  had  seen." 

"The  Sun  God— the  great  Lord  of  E  Bara. 
Let  me  see;  even  me." 

Before  the  discovery  of  the  cylinder  of  Na- 
bonidus the  date  of  Sargon  of  Accad  was  un- 
certain. He  had  often  been  regarded  as  iden- 
tical with  the  later  Sargon,  the  Assyrian  king 
who  carried  the  Ten  Tribes  of  Israel  into  cap- 
tivity about  722  B.  C.  The  numerous  records 
remaining  of  the  earlier  Sargon  had  made  the 
identity  of  these  two  monarchs  confusing  and 
impossible,  which  was  cleared  away  by  the 
discovery  of  the  records  of  Nabonidus. 

This  king  had  data  for  his  statements  which 
subsequent  discoveries  have  confirmed,  thus 
giving  to  Naram-Sin  the  date  of  thirty-two 
hundred  and    fifty   years   before    Nabonidus, 


J 


101 


gOT^HE  ^ATH^F$lffi^LIXHRBE% 


which  was  550  B.C.,  and  allowing  for  the  long 
reign  of  Sargon  I,  we  have  the  immense  anti- 
quity of  B.  C.  3800  for  the  time  of  the  great 
Sargon  of  Accad. 

The  site  where  this  important  discovery  was 
made  is  one  of  the  two  Sipparas,  situated  on 
opposite  sides  of  the  royal  canal,  not  far  from 
the  Euphrates,  and  running  parallel  with  the 
river. 

These  two  cities  were  anciently  known  by 
their  rival  sanctuaries,  the  one  dedicated  to 
the  worship  of  the  Sun,  and  the  other  to  the 
worship  of  the  Moon,  and  were  known  as  the 
Sippara  of  the  Sun  and  theSippara  of  Annuit. 

The  Sippara  of  Annuit  is  the  supposed  site 
of  the  ancient  Agade  of  Sargon.  It  was,  how- 
ever, at  Sippara  of  the  Sun  that  Naram-Sin, 
the  son  of  Sargon,  founded  the  temple  which 
was  discovered  by  Nabonidus  and  rediscovered 
by  Mr.  Rassam  a  few  years  ago. 

While  making  excavations  in  a  mound  near 
the  supposed  site  of  Sippara,  Mr.  Rassam  made 
his  way  into  some  rooms  of  a  vast  structure 
which  he  found  to  be  a  temple.  Passing  on 
from  room  to  room,  he  at  last  entered  a  smaller 
chamber  which  was  paved  with  asphalt.  As* 
this  kind  of  pavement  was  unusual  in  Babylo- 
nian and  Assyrian  structures  he  concluded 
this  must  be  the  secret  depository  of  records. 
Having  broken    into  the  pavement,  he  came 


! 


"jjT$HEffl.TS  ifiF^HEjftLPHRBET 


r 


TT 
12 


finally  upon  a  sealed  casket  or  chest  of  earth- 
enware, about  three  feet  below  the  surface,  in 
which  was  found  a  stone  tablet,  beautifully  in- 
scribed, and  also  other  documents. 

This  stone  tablet  was  the  archive  of  the  fa- 
mous Sun  temple  as  was  proved  by  the  inscrip- 
tion on  it,  and  also  by  the  documents  found 
with  it,  which  gave  the  names  of  the  founder 
and  the  restorers  of  the  temple. 

The  tablet  had  upon  it  a  representation  of 
the  Sun  God,  seated  upon  a  throne  receiving 
the  homage  of  his  worshippers,  while  above 
him  the  sun  disc  is  suspended  as  from  heaven 
by  two  strong  cords  held  up  by  two  minister- 
ing spirits. 

The  inscription  declares  this  to  be  the  image 
of  Shamash,  the  great  L,ord  who  dwells  in  the 
House  of  the  Sun  which  is  within  the  city  of 
Sippara. 

This  established  at  once  the  site  as  that  of 
ancient  Sippara,  which  to  this  time  had  been 
doubtful,  and  may  lead  to  further  discoveries 
of  still  greater  antiquity  on  the  site  of  the  Sip- 
para of  Annuit,  the  supposed  site  of  the  an- 
cient Agane. 

In  the  records  remaining  of  Sargon,  from 
various  localities,  it  is  stated  that  he  built  here 
a  palace,  which,  after  some  important  military 
campaigns  he  greatly  enlarged;  that  he  built 
also  a  magnificent  temple  to  Annuit,  and  that 


103 


$*r^EBE  jjPRTH  0F$HE^IJgroiBE% 


H/ 


_^ 


4'v 


aj^fi^^ 


afterwards  a  statue  of  him  (Sargon)  was  here 
erected,  inscribed  with  memorials  of  his  birth 
and  career. 

The  tablets  in  the  British  Museum  contain- 
ing these  records  are  probably  copies  of  these 
older  inscriptions,  the  originals  not  having  as 
yet  been  discovered.  They  record  Sargon 's 
invasions  of  Elam  with  victorious  armies,  an- 
other successful  campaign  in  Syria,  the  subju- 
gation of  all  Babylonia  and  the  peopling  of  his 
new  city,  Agane,  with  the  conquered  nations. 

His  longest  and  greatest  campaign  was  a 
later  invasion  of  Syria  at  which  he  was  absent 
from  his  kingdom  for  three  years.  At  this 
time  he  penetrated  to  the  ' '  Sea  of  the  setting 
Sun" — the  Mediterranean — conquering  all  the 
countries  through  which  he  passed. 

In  the  rocky  cliffs  of  the  Asian  shore  he  left 
inscriptions  recording  his  triumphs,  and  me- 
morial statues  of  him  were  erected  in  various 
places.  It  is  possible  that  he  crossed  to  Cyprus 
where  relics  of  him,  and  of  his  son,  Naram- 
Sin,  have  been  found. 

He  seems  to  have  had  ambitions  of  universal 
empire,  and  it  is  stated  that  after  his  return 
from  this  expedition,  "  he  appointed  that  all 
places  should  form  a  single  kingdom."  Of 
this  he  says  : 

"Forty-five  years  the  kingdom  I  have  ruled, 
and  the  black  Accadian  race  I  have  governed. 


I 


toff    wi 


'p*  $HEf axH  (6r  jHE.afcLi'HnBET 


.  j' 


i 

T 

T 

r 


In  multitude    of   bronze  chariots    I   rode 
over  rugged  lands." 

Three  times  to  the  coast  of  the  Persian  sea   : 
I  advanced." 

The  countries  of  the  Sea  of  the  setting  Sun 
I  crossed." 

' '  In  the  third  year  at  the  setting  Sun  my 
hand  conquered." 

Under  one  command  I  caused  them  to  be 
only  fixed." 

Naram-Sin — the  beloved  of  Sin,  the  Moon 
God — continued  the  military  advances  of  his 
father.  The  records  remaining  state  that  he 
invaded  Egypt  and  held  in  possession  for  a 
time  Maganna,  the  land  of  Magan,  the  region 
of  the  turquoise  and  copper  mines  and  of  the 
famous  diorite. 

A  vase  discovered  at  Babylon  and  since  lost 
in  the  Tigris,  has  on  it  the  inscription  : 

"  To  Naram-Sin,  King  of  the  Four  Races, 
Conqueror  of  Apirak  and  Magan." 

A  second  alabaster  vase  was  found  by  M .  de 
Sarazec  in  the  ruins  of  Tel-L,oh,  having  in- 
scribed on  it  the  words  : 

11  Naram-Sin,  King  of  the  Four  Regions," 
or  king  of  the  north,  south,  east  and  west. 

This  vase  was  imbedded  in  the  masonry, 
evidently  later  restorations  of  the  earlier  build- 
ings of  Gudea. 

A  cylinder   found  by  General    Cesnola,    at 


105 


C^ 
*&*&*. 


pttKZJKTHQYtlWgaXliKBZ- 


Cyprus  has  on  it  an  inscription  declaring  its 
owner  as  a  worshipper  of  Naram-Sin,  who  it 
seems  had  been  deified  by  his  subjects. 

In  the  first  volume  of  Babylonian  inscrip- 
tions found  at  Nippur,  Prof.  Hilfrecht  records 
six  inscriptions  of  Sargon,  two  brick  stamps 
of  baked  clay,  fragments  of  many  vases  and 
three  door  sockets,  most  of  these  temple  offer- 
ings to  Bel — Mul-lil,  of  Nippur.  The  door 
sockets  contain  the  longest  inscriptions  of  Sar- 
gon thus  far  known. 

There  are  many  inscriptions  of  Naram-Sin 
in  the  Nippur  remains,  and  yet  more  now  in 
course  of  translation.  These  refer  again  to  the 
restoration  by  these  kings  of  the  temple  of  Bel 
and  their  dominion  over  the  whole  of  South 
Babylonia. 

As  these  explorations  are  yet  in  progress,  it 
is  too  early  to  indicate  the  farther  evidences 
of  these  early  rulers  of  Babylonia  remaining 
at  Nippur. 

The  various  localities  in  which  these  relics 
have  been  found  indicate  the  extensive  sway 
of  these  monarchs.  They  suggest  also  the 
period  when  certain  gods  of  Chaldea  were 
adopted  by  the  various  nations  and  people  con- 
quered by  Sargon  or  Naram-Sin. 

Sinai,  the  mountain  of  Sin,  the  Moon  God, 
may  be  a  reminiscence  of  the  invasion  of  Ara- 
bia by  Naram-Sin  directed  by  this  divinity. 


) 


*}AT$HEf ATH  @F$HE^UJ?HIVB£T  , 


Mount  Nebo,  the  mountain  upon  which 
Moses  died,  received  its  name  from  the  Chal- 
dean Nebo,  the  god  of  science  and  literature, 
the  god  of  wisdom  and  prophesy. 

Istar,  the  evening  star,  the  Chaldean  Venus, 
the  goddess  of  love  and  fertility,  became  the 
Atthar  of  southern  Arabia,  is  identical  with 
the  goddess  Hathor,  of  Egyptian  mythology, 
and  was  worshipped  by  the  Canaanites  as  Ash- 
taroth,  and  finally  by  the  Greeks  as  Astarte. 

Against  this  background  of  history  and  tra- 
dition, of  civilization  so  remote,  a  notable  fig- 
ure appears  about  fifteen  hundred  and  forty 
years  later  than  the  great  Sharrukin,  or  2260 
B.  C,  in  whom  the  most  sacred  traditions  of 
later  civilizations  were  to  have  their  rise. 

This  was  Abraham,  or  Abu-ramu,  "the  ex- 
alted father' '  with  whom  the  history  of  the  peo- 
ple of  Israel  begins.  A  Semite,  and  a  native 
of  Ur,  his  historical  position  is  an  important 
landmark  in  the  story  of  letters. 

Of  special  significance  in  this  connection  is 
this  early  contact  of  Abraham  and  his  family 
with  the  land  and  people  of  Chaldea; — the 
lingering  survivals  of  Accadian  speech  and 
traditions  in  Hebrew  language  and  literature. 

Again,  when  Abraham  left  Chaldea  to  found 
a  great  nation  in  another  land,  writing  and 
literature  could  not  have  been  unknown  to  him . 

The  constant  use  of  cuneiform  signs  in  ar- 


ig^jfr*^ 


^m-': 


JIJtf^HE  [jPilTH  OF  fKKWLFHRBE 


^^a^ 


•  -V 


J* 


A 


chitectural  structures,  in  business  forms  and 
in  every  department  of  social  and  industrial 
life  and  the  ever  present  schools  for  scribes  in 
all  the  great  cities  of  Mesopotamia  made  this 
impossible.  The  art  of  writing  was  no  new 
thing  to  this  young  Semite  prince.  It  was  an 
art  even  then  hoary  with  age. 

With  all  to  whom  Abraham  is  a  historic  per- 
sonality, the  story  of  his  life  and  times  as  re- 
corded in  the  biblical  narrative,  is  illuminated 
as  never  before  in  the  testimony  of  these  cunei- 
form documents  from  old  Chaldea. 

The  biblical  narrative  does  not  touch  upon 
the  causes  which  led  Abraham  away  from  the 
land  of  his  nativity.  Jewish  and  Arabian  tra- 
ditions, however,  state  (and  there  may  be  a 
grain  of  truth  in  these  traditions),  that  this 
was  the  result  of  the  revolt  of  Abraham  against 
the  idols  of  Ur,  and  his  refusal  to  acknowledge 
them  as  divine ;  that  this  brought  upon  him 
and  his  father's  family  a  storm  of  persecution 
from  the  priests  and  people  which  ended  in 
their  banishment  from  Ur,  and  their  departure 
for  a  distant  country. 

The  references  in  the  scripture  narrative  to 
Terah,  the  father  of  Abraham,  as  an  idolator, 
and  the  Arabian  tradition  as  a  sculptor  or  mak- 
er of  idols,  is  significant  in  these  connections. 

The  destination  of  this  family  was  Haran, 
at  that  time  a  Turanian  city  in  northern  Meso- 


$N  ±HE  5F ATH  0F$HE^XFHABST 


^v~. 


in 


potamia,  an  important  frontier  station  on  the 
high  road  to  Syria  and  Palestine,  and  the  var- 
ious roads  to  the  fords  of  the  Tigris  and  Eu- 
phrates. 

The  word  Haran  is  from  the  Accadian, 
Kharran,  "  a  road,"  and  was  thus  named  for 
its  position.  It  is  said  to  lie  in  a  region  of 
exceeding  fertility  and  beauty.  Its  fine,  free 
air  and  commanding  views  make  it  the  delight 
of  the  Bedaween  tribes  who  find  here  luxuri- 
ant pasturage  for  innumerable  flocks  and  herds. 

Previous  to  the  time  of  Abraham,  there  seems 
to  have  been  at  Haran,  and  in  the  region  round 
about,  a  considerable  colony  of  Semitic  people, 
as  indicated  by  Assyrian  inscriptions.  Since 
Abraham's  date,  "  Nahor's  City"  and  the 
11  Well  of  Rebekah,"  located  near  Haran,  bear 
these  ancient  names  to  the  present  day. 

The  deity  of  Haran  was  then  the  Moon  God, 
the  same  deity  as  worshipped  at  Ur,  always  a 
favorite  divinity  with  all  Semitic  people,  and 
which  might  have  been  an  influence  that  drew 
Terah  there.  During  the  remaining  years  of 
Terah's  life,  Abraham  remained  in  this  locali- 
ty, prospering  greatly ;  but  with  his  father's 
death  his  long  conceived  purpose  of  establish- 
ing himself  in  Canaan  was  finally  achieved. 

After  Abraham's  arrival  in  Canaan  with  his 
numerous  household,  his  princely  retinue  and 
his  great  possessions,    we  find   him  again  in 


109 


*r 


^%&m 


S/ 


.ar^V 


J" 


^^E^aTH^F^ggiLFHIIBE^' 


contact  with  certain  Babylonian  princes  who 
have  invaded  Canaan  and  have  obtained  sov- 
ereignty in  various  localities. 

The  fourteenth  chapter  of  Genesis  gives  ac- 
count of  the  battle  of  Abraham  with  these  kings 
of  Babylonia  for  the  rescue  of  Lot,  his  nephew, 
in  which  he  put  the  invaders  to  flight,  estab- 
lishing peace  and  security  in  the  land. 

The  names  of  these  kings  as  given  in  the 
scripture  narrative  are  Chedorlaomer,  king  of 
Elam  ;  Amraphel,  king  of  Shinar  ;  Arioch, 
king  of  Ellasar,  or  Larsa,  and  Tidal,  king  of 
nations. 

These  kings  are  now  identified  by  Babylonian 
records,  Chedorlaomer,  king  of  Elam,  as  Ku- 
dur-Lagomar,  an  Elamite  king  of  that  date; 
Arioch,  king  of  Ellasar,  with  Eri-Aku,  then 
king  of  Larsa.  Amraphel,  king  of  Shinar,  is 
identified  as  Hammurabi,  or  Khammuragas, 
and  Tidal,  king  of  nations,  as  Thorgal,  king 
of  Gutium,  a  region  to  the  north  of  Elam. 

The  evident  correspondence  of  these  kings 
with  Abraham's  contemporaries,  furnish  con- 
tinued evidence  of  the  political  contacts  of 
Babylonia  and  Canaan  from  the  earliest  times, 
and  in  many  ways  confirm  the  historical  veri- 
ties of  the  early  scripture  records. 

Another  document,  reflecting  new  light  from 
the  cuneiform  inscriptions,  is  the  last  exhorta- 
tion of  Joshua  to  Israel  assembled  atShechem. 


Ijtor  $he£ ath  0f$he^ufhz\b£T* 


T 


ill 


In  the  review  he  then  gives  of  the  history  of 
his  people,  he  says  : 

1 '  Your  fathers  dwelt  on  the  other  side  of  the 
flood — the  Euphrates — in  the  old  time  ;  even 
Terah,  the  father  of  Abraham,  and  the  father 
of  Nahor,  and  they  served  other  gods. 

"And  I  took  your  father  Abraham  from  the 
other  side  of  the  flood  and  led  him  throughout 
all  the  land  of  Canaan.  And  I  brought  you 
into  the  land  of  the  Amorites  *  *  and  I  gave 
them  into  your  hand  ;  *  *  now,  therefore, 
fear  the  Lord  *  *  and  serve  him  in  sincerity 
and  truth  and  put  away  the  gods  which  your 
fathers  served  on  the  other  side  of  the  flood  and 
in  Egypt,  and  serve  ye  the  Lord." 

The  whole  discourse  bears  internal  evidence  |* 
of  a  written  report,  fresh  from  the  voice  of  the 
speaker.  We  now  know  that  the  functions  of 
the  scribe  were  as  constantly  employed  as  the 
modern  reporter  through  all  Babylonia  and 
Assyria  as  well  as  Egypt  at  these  early  dates. 

Moses,  who  was  learned  in  all  the  wisdom 
of  the  Egyptians,  evidently  had  no  lack  of  \^\ 
scribes  among  the  Israelites.  The  Tel-el- Am- 
arna  tablets  give  evidence  of  the  general  prac- 
tice of  the  art  of  writing  through  all  Canaan 
before  the  days  of  Moses  and  Joshua. 

We  have  thus  little  need  to  refer  to  the  pe- 
riod of  the  Babylonian  captivity  for  the  appear- 
ance of  Accadian  and  Aramean  words  in  early 


V 


is  V 


Hebrew  history,  or  for  the  correspondences  of 
Chaldean  legends  with  scripture  records. 

The  origin  of  the  documents  which  in  Ezra's 
time  were  collected  and  re- written  in  new  form, 
were  historical  remnants  surviving  from  the 
earlier  periods  to  which  they  are  assigned  in 
history  and  tradition. 


y 

ml 

m 

A 

IK 

/WW 

i 

\ 

>1 

MJ 

/WW\ 

The  order  both  of  the  columns  and  the  hieroglyph! 
ia  from  left  to  right.     Verbally  translated  it  reads : 


n-uk 

I  am 

uah 
very 
tner 
loving 


neb  aamt 

a  lord       excellent 
mert        heta 
beloved      ruler 
tama/  arna 

his  country  passed  I 
em 
of 


tar 
for 


renpau     em       heka 
years  as     the  ruler 

Sah         baJeu  neb       en 

Bah      the  work       all         of 

»ulna  kheper       em 

the  palace      was  done     by 


my  hand. 


HIEROGLYPHS  AND  TRANSLATION. 


m 


Sine 


Iff 

FfiH 


ATMENJ 


Mil  J 


]»r  {jJHEj ATH  6F  t^JULFHABET  * 


CHAPTER  IX.     . 

fe/kcyHE  Semitic  Assyrians  and  the  Semitic 
w^  PeoP^e  °f  other  portions  of  Mesopo- 
6-J^^>  tamia,  had  adopted  the  cuneiform 
script  and  the  Turanian  syllabary  as  early  as 
the  days  of  Sargon.  From  this  time  onward, 
and  until  the  days  of  Assyrian  and  Babylonian 
supremacy,  these  signs  were  the  common  me- 
dium of  literary  intercourse  among  the  nations 
of  western  Asia  and  expressed  various  lan- 
guages and  dialects. 

The  famous  documents  recently  found  in 
Egypt,  known  as  the  "  Tel-el- Amarna  "  let- 
ters, indicate  the  extensive  use  of  cuneiform 
writing  in  the  fifteenth  century  before  Christ, 
or  about  seven  hundred  and  twenty  years  after 
Abraham. 

The  story  of  the  discovery  of  these  docu- 
ments is  still  another  among  the  many  romances 
which  archaeology  so  constantly  and  so  unex- 
pectedly presents. 

The  site  of  the  modern  Arab  village,  Tel-el- 
Amarna,  is  about  one  hundred  and  ninety 
miles  south  of  Cairo,  on  the  eastern  bank  of 
the  river  Nile. 


pifnzrATHQTfel&^llRMV 


V 


*-*V 


<s?'V 


The  mountain  chain  which  here  follows  the 
course  of  the  river,  recedes  at  this  point  in  the 
form  of  a  bay,  and  upon  the  sandy  plain  thus 
partially  enclosed,  many  interesting  remains 
appear,  indicating  the  site  of  an  ancient  city. 

The  tombs  on  the  hillside  have  long  been  of 
special  interest  to  Egyptologists. 

This  city  was  known  to  have  been  the  royal 
residence,  and  for  a  time  the  capital  of  Egypt, 
under  Amenophis  IV,  the  ninth  king  of  the 
eighteenth  dynasty.  This  king,  son  of  Amen- 
ophis III  and  Queen  Teie,  a  princess  of  Mit- 
anni,  was  through  several  generations  of  ma- 
ternal descent  more  Asiatic  than  Egyptian. 

The  royal  house  of  Mitanni — the  Aram-Na- 
hairam  of  the  Hebrews — had  given  in  marriage 
several  successive  princesses  to  the  kings  of 
Egypt.  Tothmes  III,  during  his  wars  of  con- 
quest in  western  Asia,  had  obtained  a  princess 
of  Mitanni  in  marriage,  and  this  alliance  was 
further  cemented  by  the  Egyptian  kings,  his 
successors,  to  the  period  of  Amenophis  III,  the 
father  of  Khu  n  Aten,  Amenophis  IV. 

These  frequent  alliances  had  brought  about 
an  inclination  for  the  gods  of  the  Mesopota- 
mian  mothers,  and  after  while  this  younger 
son  of  the  royal  house  of  Egypt,  openly  pro- 
fessed his  adoption  of  the  worship  of  Aten,  the 
supreme  Baal  of  the  Semitic  people  of  Asia, 
and  attempted  to  substitute  this  for  the  worship 


1 


i 


JclHL JfflL 


*J#§fcH£f  ATH  OF  $HE, J\XFHJ\BET 


of  Amon,  the  god  of  Thebes.  He  erased  the 
name  of  the  Egyptian  god  from  the  monuments 
and  temples  wherever  found.  This  so  aroused 
the  indignation  of  the  powerful  priesthood  de- 
voted to  the  worship  of  Anion,  that  Ameno- 
phis  found  it  necessary  to  leave  for  a  time  the 
capital  of  his  kingdom  at  Thebes  and  to  found 
another  elsewhere. 

This  was  established  on  the  site  of  the  mod- 
ern Tel-el-Armana.  The  king  took  to  himself 
a  new  title,  Khu  n  Aten,  "The  Splendor  of 
the  Sun's  Disc,"  by  which  name  also  he  des- 
ignated his  new  city.  His  reign  after  this 
seems  to  have  been  of  short  duration.  After 
him,  two  or  three  princes  of  his  house  suc- 
ceeded him,  but  with  him  Egyptian  supremacy 
in  western  Asia  was  at  an  end  and  the  subject 
provinces  of  Syria  and  Palestine  passed  out  of 
Egyptian  hands  and  rule. 

The  mummy  of  this  monarch  has  recently 
been  found  in  a  royal  sepulcher  of  the  kings  of 
Thebes  with  those  of  other  kings  of  this  an- 
cient dynasty. 

The  revolt  against  the  heretical  king  was 
extensive  and  Egypt  was  distracted  with  civil 
wars.  The  adherents  of  the  ancient  religions 
soon  brought  the  worship  of  the  new  heresy 
to  an  end,  and  Rameses,  first  king  of  the  nine- 
teenth dynasty,  restored  the  worship  of  Amon 
and  the  ancient  gods  of  Egypt,  with  all  power 


$2I$BE  ^ATH  OF  JJHE/AJLPHRBE 


7J 


^ 


fl^V 


K, 


.,-*<>^ 


and  dignity  and  brought  with  him  a  return  of 
peace. 

Such  was  the  aversion  of  the  Egyptian  peo- 
ple for  the  capital  of  the  heretic  king,  that, 
although  his  city  was  built  almost  entirely  of 
sun-dried  bricks,  it  has  suffered  less  from  the 
ravages  of  time  than  the  more  solidly  con 
structed  cities  of  Thebes  and  Memphis. 

Prisse  D'Avennes,  who  gives  a  description 
of  the  site  of  Khu  n  Aten,  says  that  the  prin- 
cipal streets  of  the  city  are  distinct  and  the 
greater  buildings  can  in  part  be  traced.  And 
again,  that  some  of  the  buildings  of  sun-burnt 
brick  are  the  best  preserved  and  most  ancient 
dwellings  in  the  valley  of  the  Nile. 

In  1887  some  clay  tablets  of  peculiar  and 
foreign  character  were  found  in  these  ruins  in 
company  with  Egyptian  relics.  These  tablets 
resembled  for  the  most  part  small  pillows  of 
clay  and  they  were  inscribed  with  cuneiform 
characters.  With  them  were  found  a  few  lar- 
ger tablets,  some  small  cylinders  also  inscrib- 
ed in  cuneiform,  and  seals  and  other  relics 
with  hieroglyphic  inscriptions. 

The  ruins  where  they  were  found  were  at 
first  supposed  to  have  been  the  remains  of  the 
royal  residence,  but  further  examination  indi- 
cates this  structure  as  the  depository  of  the 
royal  archives,  the  abode  of  the  king's  scribe 
and  custodian  of  documents.     It  was  near  the 


-l 


liO 


Hfcw  xhe  ^ath  0r  $he^ulphivbbt^^ 


\ 


palace  though  not  of  it.  A  portion  of  these 
documents  were  placed  in  the  museum  at  Cairo, 
some  were  obtained  for  the  British  Museum, 
and  the  remainder  by  the  Royal  Museum  of 
Berlin.  They  include  in  all  three  hundred 
letters  from  kings  of  Babylonia,  Assyria,  Mes- 
opotamia and  northern  Syria,  and  from  subject 
princes  and  governors  in  Palestine  and  through- 
out Canaan. 

Although  in  cuneiform  script,  these  charac- 
ters varied  with  the  locality  from  whence  they 
came.  The  indications  are  that  this  system  of 
writing  had  been  long  in  use  throughout  west- 
ern Asia. 

The  language  chiefly  used  in  these  documents 
was  the  Semitic  Babylonian,  in  the  syllabary 
of  the  older  Turanian  form.  In  one  or  two 
cases  the  writer  uses  the  Babylonian  script  to 
express  his  native  language,  the  speech  of  the 
locality  from  whence  the  letter  was  sent,  but 
these  instances  are  rare. 

In  one  letter  from  Tushratta,  or  Dusratta, 
king  of  Mitanni,  the  first  seven  lines  are  in  l*v 
Assyrian,  but  after  this  the  remaining  five 
hundred  and  five  lines  are  in  his  native  lan- 
guage, the  speech  of  Mitanni,  a  language  as 
yet  unknown,  having  never  been  translated. 

The  meanings  of  a  few  words  have  been  de- 
termined by  Dr.  Sayce  and  other  scholars  and 
the  indications   are  that  the  language   was  a 


^xl 


117 


^r$HE;PATH(pF 


V 


f. 


^Wb* 


Mongol  dialect,  akin  to  the  Accadian.  The 
similarity  of  some  words  to  those  used  by  the 
Hittite  prince,  Tarkondara,  who  also  writes 
about  this  time  to  Amenophis  III,  indicates 
this  to  be  of  the  same  family  of  speech. 

The  writing  of  this  document  is  syllabic;  and 
in  the  older  cuneiform,  with  very  few  deter- 
minatives. 

In  some  later  explorations  at  Tel-el-Amarna 
Mr.  Petrie  came  upon  some  fragments  of  other 
tablets  in  cuneiform  which  proved  to  be  dic- 
tionaries. "  In  one  case  the  dictionary  ex- 
presses Semitic  Babylonian  and  Sumerian,  and 
as  the  Sumerian  words  are  written  phonetically 
as  well  as  ideographically,  it  would  appear  that 
Sumerian  must  have  been  still  a  living  lan- 
guage." 

On  one  of  these  later  found  tablets,  Babylo- 
nian words  are  given  to  explain  words  of  two 
other  languages,  one  of  which  Mr.  Boscawen 
thinks  to  be  old  Egyptian.  If  this  is  the  case 
it  is  the  only  instance  in  the  Tel-el-Amarna 
collections  where  this  appears.  In  no  other 
portion  of  this  correspondence  is  the  language 
of  Egypt  used. 

Throughout  the  vast  region  represented  by 
these' letters,  including  various  races  and  forms 
of  speech,  from  the  upper  Euphrates  to  Baby- 
lonia; from  northern  Syria  to  southern  Pales- 
every where,  the  Babylonian  language  and 


in 


E 


"li*  &HEJATH  07  JHE ^ULFHABET 


Babylonian  script  were  the  common  medium 
of  literary  intercourse  in  this  correspondence. 

The  fact  that  many  of  these  letters  seem  to 
have  been  individual  productions  and  not  the 
work  of  special  schools  of  scribes  -indicates  the 
widespread  influence  of  Babylonian  culture, 
and  the  opportunities  for  education  existing 
throughout  the  Orient  in  the  century  before 
the  Exodus. 

There  are  evidences  that  the  schools  and  li- 
braries of  the  ancient  cities  of  Mesopotamia 
had  their  counterparts  in  the  cities  of  southern 
Palestine;  as  for  instance  Kirgath-Seper,  "The 
City  of  Books,"  to  which  we  find  later  refer- 
ence as  Kirgath-Sanneh,  "The  City  of  In- 
struction." 

The  glimpses  afforded  of  social  and  political . 
conditions  in  various  localities  at  the  period 
of  this  correspondence  are  of  historical  im- 
portance, furnishing  data  and  verifying  docu- 
ments found  elsewhere,  of  the  same  persons 
and  events. 

We  have  in  the  Tel-el- Amarna  collection, 
letters  from  Burraburyash  and  his  father,  kings 
of  Kardungyash  or  Babylon,  to  Amenophis  III 
of  Egypt,  in  which  reference  is  made  to  the 
Egyptian  princess,  sister- of  Amenophis,  wife 
of  the  king  of  Babylon. 

Burraburyash  also  wants  gold,  '  'much  gold' ' 
from  the  .Egyptian  king,    for  the  building  of 


pifHZ  fIXTll  of  xhe.Ajlphrb^ 


cr^ 


4i 


.r-*<^- 


his  temple-,  and  complains  that  this  does  not 
come  to  him  in  sufficient  quantities. 

There  is  one  letter  from  the  king  of  Assyria 
and  many  letters  from  Tushratta,  or  Dusratta, 
king  of  Mitanni.  These  latter  refer  chiefly  to 
the  princesses  of  Mitanni,  wives  of  the  Egyp- 
tian kings,  Queen  Teie,  mother  of  Amenophis 
IV,  and  the  princess  Kirghipa,  whose  magnif- 
icent dowry  occupies  a  great  portion  of  some 
of  the  largest  tablets  in  the  collection.  The 
lists  include  horses  and  a  chariot  covered  with 
gold,  ornaments  of  silver  and  gold  of  finest 
Babylonian  workmanship,  decorated  with  pre- 
cious stones  and  rich  garments  of  variegated 
stuffs. 

Upon  the  death  of  Amenophis  III,  this  prin- 
cess became  the  wife  of  Amenophis  IV,  his  son, 
who  thus  continued  his  alliance  with  the  pow- 
erful and  wealthy  Tushratta,  king  of  Mitanni. 

Some  of  the  most  interesting  letters  in  the 
collection  are  from  Syria  and  Palestine,  from 
the  native  princes  and  governors  of  cities,  at 
this  time  subject  to  the  Egyptian  kings. 

The  correspondence  of  Ebed-tob,  priest  king 
and  governor  of  Jerusalem,  is  of  special  inter- 
est. Jerusalem  was  at  this  time  a  city  of  the 
Amorites,  a  Semitic  people  of  Palestine  and  its 
name  in  these  documents  is  Uru-Salim,  signi- 
fying "  The  City  of  the  god  Salim,"  or  the 
"God  of  Peace." 


iri 


"m  ;±HE  *ATH  $r^3E^XFHI«ET^ 


Ebed-tob  impresses  the  fact  upon  his  royal 
correspondent  that  though  subject  to  the  Egyp- 
tian king,  he  is  king  of  Uru-Salim  by  an  oracle 
of  the  god  of  Salim.  He  was  thus  priest  king 
of  the  city  by  divine  appointment- and  not  by 
heredity.  This  statement  suggests  that  earlier 
king  of  Jerusalem,  Melchizedek,  who,  as  king 
of  Salem  and  priest  of  the  ' '  Most  High  God, ' ' 
comes  forth  with  bread  and  wine  and  blessings 
for  Abraham,  the  Deliverer  of  the  country 
from  its  foes  ;  the  Restorer  of  Peace. 

The  Assyrian  form,  Sar  Salim,  "King  of 
Salem, ' '  is  identical  with  the  Hebrew  Sar  Sha- 
lom, "Prince  of  Peace."  This  again  illus- 
trates the  application  by  Isaiah  of  the  title  of 

Prince  of  Peace ' '  to  that  later  ' '  Prince  of 
the  House  of  David,"  who,  in  a  higher  spirit- 
ual sense  than  his  great  prototype,  Melchize- 
dek, was  yet  to  be  to  all  nations  and  people 
"  King  of  Salem  "  and  "  Prince  of  Peace." 

The  most  remarkable  event  in  the  history  of 
archaeology  has  its  connections  with  the  Tel- 
el- Amarna  discovery. 

Among  the  letters  in  this  collection  address- 
ed to  Amenophis  IV,  from  the  governors  of 
cities  in  southern  Palestine,  are  those  from  the 
governor  of  Lachish.  This  dignitary  was 
named  Zimrida  and  his  dispatches  to  the  king 
of  Egypt  were  chiefly  upon  the  political  con- 
ditions of  his  province,  its  dangers  from  ap- 


121 


pifnZ  [fJlTH(foff2ffiffil*HKBB% 


?"^v  - 


<-> 


-—<>^^r: 


--^^1 


proaching  foes  and  the  necessity  of  relief  from 
Egypt. 

It  seems  that  Zimrida  was  in  greater  danger 
from  foes  within  than  without,  for  in  one  of 
the  later  letters  from  Ebed-tob,  he  alludes  to 
the  murder  of  Zimrida  by  servants  of  the  Egyp- 
tian king. 

The  discovery  of  these  cuneiform  tablets  from 
southern  Palestine  had  strengthened  the  grow- 
ing convictions  of  Prof.  Sayce  that  lying  be- 
neath many  of  the  tels  or  mounds  that  marked 
the  sites  of  ancient  cities  throughout  southern 
Palestine,  other  similar  treasures  were  buried. 
The  name  Kirgath  Sepher,  "  Book  Town," 
was  strongly  suggestive,  and  acting  upon  these 
impressions  he  urged  the  Palestine  Explora- 
tion Fund  to  undertake  explorations  in  this 
region. 

The  Tel-el-Amarna  letters  were  discovered 
in  1887.  It  was  not,  however,  until  1890 that 
the  officers  of  the  Palestine  Exploration  Fund 
were  able  to  obtain  the  necessary  permission 
from  the  Turkish  government,  or  to  secure 
the  services  of  the  distinguished  explorer,  Dr. 
Petrie,  for  the  work.  This  gentleman  began 
excavations  in  the  month  of  April  of  that  year. 

After  some  days  of  examination  of  various 
tels  in  this  region  for  the  site  of  Lachish,  he 
decided  to  commence  work  at  the  tel  or  mound 
Tel-el-Hesy,  so  called    from    the  river   Hesy 


—  ^C 


I  |SIDC» 


¥ 


M~~W 


iJUirlgrofATHg^FHE^ttFHIttET*'  - 


1f 

f 

T 

TT 

A. 

TT 


T? 


which  flows  by  the  hill  on  which  the  mound 
is  located.  It  is  about  seventeen  miles  to  the 
east  of  Gaza.  The  natural  eminence  upon 
which  it  is  situated  rises  to  a  height  of  forty 
feet  above  the  valley.  Above  this  the  mound 
consists  of  a  succession  of  town  levels,  the  one 
above  the  other,  sixty  feet  higher,  from  which 
a  commanding  view  of  the  region  is  obtained. 

Fortunately  for  the  explorer,  the  turbulent 
stream  flowing  over  these  declivities  has  cut 
this  tel  on  the  eastern  side  from  top  to  bottom , 
leaving  the  whole  face  exposed  and  revealing 
distinctly  the  various  city  levels  of  the  several 
periods  of  occupation.  The  commanding  po- 
sition of  the  site,  the  fine  springs  of  water, 
gushing  from  the  hillsides,  and  the  rapid 
stream,  affording  an  abundance  of  fresh,  sweet 
water,  the  locality  agreeing  in  so  many  partic- 
ulars with  the  site  of  ancient  Lachish,  the  evi- 
dences also  in  the  hillside  of  the  existence  at 
various  periods  of  ancient  important  cities, 
justified  his  convictions  which  subsequent  dis- 
coveries verified. 

After  some  months  of  excavation,  Dr.  Petrie 
was  obliged  to  discontinue  his  work  here  for 
engagements  elsewhere,  leaving  further  explo- 
rations in  the  hands  of  Mr.  Bliss. 

*The  result  of  Dr.  Petrie's  labors  had  been 

*  Palestine  Explorations,  1890.    Journals  of  Dr.  Petrie. 


*"1 


r'V 


r 


^C^*^ 


pi^CHZ  ^PATH  OF  JJEJE^LPHABE^ 

to  establish  known  facts  in  the  history  of  an- 
cient Lachish.  The  lowest  and  earliest  town 
must  have  been  of  great  strength  and  import- 
ance. The  remains  of  the  walls  are  twenty- 
eight  feet  and  eight  inches  in  thickness,  of 
bricks  unburnt,  with  two  successive  patchings 
of  rebuilding  occupying  thirty-nine  of  the  sixty 
feet  in  the  height  of  the  mound.  At  this  level 
the  fragments  of  pottery  were  distinct  and 
peculiar,  very  different  from  the  relics  of  the 
cities  above  and  which,  from  relics  elsewhere 
obtained,  give  the  period  of  their  use  and  man- 
ufacture at  1500  B.C. 

The  next  level  indicated  a  barbaric  invasion 
when  rude  huts  were  piled  up,  to  fall  soon 
after  into  ruin.  After  this  comes  successive 
strata  of  Jewish  cities  until  about  400  B.  C, 
since  which  time  I^achish  passed  out  of  history 
and  no  later  relics  are  found. 

Of  these  things  Dr.  Petrie  says:  'The 
Amorite  pottery  extends  from  1500  B.  C,  to 
1000  B.  C.  Phoenician  and  Cypriote  begins 
about  1000  and  goes  to  700  B.  C.  Greek  in- 
fluence then  begins  and  continues  to  the  top 
of  the  town." 

Upon  leaving,  he  pointed  out  to  Dr.  Bliss 
the  indications  that  the  lower  portions  of  the 
tel  would  bring  to  light  the  ruins  of  a  city  de- 
stroyed by  the  invading  Israelites. 

Among  the  early  relics  found  by  Mr.  Bliss, 


\ 


111  'wt 


ATHCflS 


mr    isa' 


c 


■I 


"%Ji  £HE  f ATH  0r$HE^LLFHIVBET 


when  the  lower  stratum  of  cities  was  more 
thoroughly  explored,  were  a  number  of  Egyp- 
tian beads  and  scarabs  of  the  eighteenth  Egyp- 
tian dynasty,  on  one  of  which  the  name  of 
Queen  Teie,  wife  of  Amenophis  III  and  mother 
of  Amenophis  IV,  appears. 

There  were  also  a  number  of  seal  cylinders, 
some  of  Egyptian  and  some  of  Babylonian 
manufacture,  of  the  same  period  or  earlier. 

The  most  wonderful  discovery,  however, 
was  to  come,  verifying  the  predictions  of  Prof. 
Sayce  and  the  judgment  of  Dr.  Petrie,  but  in 
a  way  to  astonish  even  these  eminent  scholars 
to  whom  all  things  seem  possible.  This  was 
the  discovery  of  a  clay  tablet  inscribed  in  cu- 
neiform characters  similar  in  size,  form  and 
other  peculiarities,  to  the  letters  from  Eachish 
in  the  Tel-el- Amarna  documents. 

It  is  written  in  the  Babylonian  language  and 
with  the  Babylonian  syllabary,  and  what  is 
still  more  astonishing,  the  name  of  Zimrida 
appears  upon  it. 

It  proves  to  be  a  letter  addressed  to  an  Egyp- 
tian officer,  received  at  Eachish  about  the  time 
Zimrida' s  letter  was  sent  to  the  king  of  Egypt. 
In  this  the  name  of  Zimrida,  who,  according 
to  the  Tel-el- Amarna  dispatches  was  governor 
of  Eachish,  is  twice  mentioned. 

Here  in  Canaan,  deep  beneath  the  remains 
of  many  cities,  and  there  upon  the  banks  of  the 


'1 


<-vN 


<r"v 


pifXE,  [PATH  ^J$HE^ULgHHTO^ 


Nile,  these  two  fragments  of  a  correspondence 
have  lain  through  many  centuries,  waiting  the 
time  when  this  long  forgotten  story  might  be 
read  and  explained. 

The  Lachish  letter  was  claimed  at  once  by 
the  Turkish  government,  and  those  who  have 
attempted  its  translation  have  been  obliged  to 
do  this  from  squeezes  or  impressions  of  the  or- 
iginal document,  which  in  some  cases  are  im- 
perfect, as  some  of  the  characters  are  partly 
obliterated  or  on  the  edges  of  the  tablet.  Quite 
enough,  however,  is  apparent  to  identify  the 
date  and  significance  of  the  documents. 

The  Tel-el-Amarna  documents  also  indicate 
in  a  way  the  date  of  the  Exodus.  They  at  least 
prove,  of  the  periods  sometimes  assigned,  when 
this  could  not  have  happened,  and  to  point  to 
the  probabilities  when  it  did. 

In  the  letters  from  southern  Canaan  we  have 
a  distinct  view  of  Palestine  before  its  occupa- 
tion by  the  Children  of  Israel.  They  had  not 
taken  possession  of  Lachish,  nor  had  they  en- 
tered Jerusalem.  At  this  time  Palestine  and 
all  Syria  were  under  Egyptian  domination. 

The  governors  of  many  of  the  cities  were 
often  times  native  Egyptians,  and  Egyptian 
garrisons  were  stationed  at  all  important  points 
for  their  protection. 

From  the  time  of  Thotmes  III,  of  the  eigh- 
teenth dynasty,  to  the  close  of   the  reign  of 


ATHEJ1S 


]ij*  $HE  f ATH  0r$HE^tXFHKBET 


S 


! 


TTT 
112 


Amenophis  IV,  this  state  of  affairs  had  con- 
tinued and  during  this  period  no  Egyptian  king 
corresponds  to  the  Pharaoh  of  the  Oppression. 
At  the  time  of  the  invasion  of  Canaan  by  the 
Israelites  and  their  occupation  of  its  cities,  the 
domination  of  Egypt  had  ceased.  This  did 
not  occur  until  the  close  of  the  eighteenth  dy- 
nasty. 

When  the  nineteenth  dynasty  came  in,  with 
Rameses  I,  a  new  order  of  things  arose.  The 
reaction  against  the  heresies  of  Amenophis  ex- 
tended to  all  Asiatic  influences,  and  the  Semitic 
people  throughout  the  realm  found  in  Rameses 
and  his  immediate  successors  the  Pharaohs 
who  "  knew  not  Joseph." 

Again,  in  certain  of  these  letters  from  south- 
ern Palestine,  there  are  references  to  the 
11  Khabiri  "  who  were  threatening  these  cities, 
and  in  the  Khabiri  some  scholars  read  the 
word  Hebrews  and  their  approaching  invasion 
of  Palestine. 

This  would  place  these  letters  at  the  close  of 
the  '  'Wandering  in  the  Wilderness, ' '  instead  of 
earlier.  Against  this  view  is  urged  that  the 
political  conditions  of  Canaan  at  the  time  of 
this  correspondence  do  not  agree  with  those 
of  the  Israelitish  invasion  of  Canaan. 

The  word  Khabiri  signifies  "  confederates." 
They  are  probably  the  people  of  Hebron,  one 
of  the   old   Amorite    cities,  and  confederated 


127 


.V*rC^ 


^nT^, 


Ji*  Jhe  "PATH  $Ff22E|UUPHABE 


F 


^ 


tfb* 


V^ 


r 


-**<fr+^-z 


m&SgSsm^Sste 


against  the  alien  Egyptian   authorities,    with 
their  stronghold  at  Hebron. 

In  the  letters  of  Ebed-tob  to  the  king  of 
Egypt,  he  complains  of  certain  officials  in  the 
neighboring  cities  who  are  conspiring  with  the 
Khabiri,  the  most  dangerous  foe  to  the  consti- 
tuted authorities  in  that  part  of  Palestine. 

The  preservation  of  these  documents  among 
the  archives  of  the  Egyptian  king  show  that 
these  appeals  were  received.  The  evidences 
are  that  they  were  sent  to  Amenophis  IV  near 
the  close  of  his  reign.  Then  civil  war,  which 
continued  for  some  time  after  his  death,  and 
during  the  reign  of  his  immediate  successors, 
made  it  necessary  to  recall  the  Egyptian  troops 
abroad,  and  the  strongholds  of  Egyptian  rule 
in  Asia  soon  surrendered  to  native  and  foreign 
claimants  of  Syria  and  Canaan. 

It  is  scarcely  possible,  in  so  brief  a  sketch, 
to  give  an  estimate  of  things  indicated,  or  the 
historical  importance  of  these  documents.  The 
most  striking  of  the  things  indicated  is  the 
large  range  presented  of  Babylonian  influence 
and  culture. 

This  is  not  more  noticeable  in  the  countries 
bordering  upon  the  Euphrates  valley  than  it  is 
throughout  the  region  lying  along  the  eastern 
coast  of  the  Mediterranean  and  the  western 
slopes  of  Amanus,  from  northern  Syria  to  the 
valley  of  the  Nile. 


g^-^^HI    111  to    wl 


'pt  £BE  tATH  «QT  JHEjftJLT  HASET 


€ 

T 

TT 

Ti 
a. 

TT 

I 
T 


From  Tyre  and  Sidon,  Beyrut  and  Joppa, 
Gaza  and  Askalon,  Jerusalem,  Lachish  and 
other  ancient  cities  of  Syria,  Palestine  and  Ca- 
naan, letters  were  addressed  to  the  king  of 
Egypt;  not  in  the  language  of  Egypt,  nor  yet 
of  Syria  or  Canaan,  but  in  the  language  and 
script  of  Babylonia. 

This  is  hardly  what  might  have  been  expect- 
ed. We  might  have  expected,  for  instance, 
the  speech  of  the  Semitic  people  of  Syria  or 
Canaan — this  older  Hebrew — to  have  assumed 
Hebraic  forms;  that  older  Phoenician  script  for 
which  scholars  are  so  earnestly  searching.  Or 
we  might  reasonably  have  supposed  that  doc- 
uments from  this  region  and  at  this  time  would 
have  been  expressed  in  the  written  forms  of 
the  hieroglyphic  system  of  Egypt ;  but  this 
was  not  the  case. 

The  problem  of  the  use  at  this  date  of  the 
script  and  language  of  Babylonia  by  the  Se- 
mitic people  of  Syria  and  Canaan,  must  be  re- 
ferred to  the  extensive  influence  of  Babylonian 
culture  and  power,  which  had  been  more  or 
less  dominant  in  Canaan  from  the  period  of 
Sargon  I. 

Of  this,  Prof.  Sayce  says  : 

' '  So  long  had  this  system  of  writing  been 
adopted  in  western  Asia,  and  so  long  had  it 
had  its  home  there,  that  each  district  and  na- 
tionality had  time  to  form  its  peculiar  hand. 


"•*&. 


piitKZ  ?FRT  H  (pF  tHE^LTH  ABE 


V 


We  can  tell  at  a  glance  by  merely  looking  at 
the  forms  assumed,  whether  a  particular  doc- 
ument came  from  the  south  of  Palestine,  from 
Phoenicia  or  from  northern  Syria." 

Again,  the  prevalence  of  its  use  throughout 
the  vast  region  represented  by  these  docu- 
ments, from  the  Persian  Gulf  to  the  moun- 
tains of  Armenia,  from  beyond  the  Tigris  to 
the  Mediterranean  Sea  and  from  northern  Syria 
to  Arabia,  implies  the  centuries. 

It  indicates  that  what  our  alphabetic  system 
is  to  modern  civilizations  the  Babylonian  cunei- 
form was  to  the  civilizations  of  western  Asia 
in  the  century  preceding  the  Exodus. 

Another  influence  for  the  persistency  and 
spread  of  the  cuneiform  writing,  was  due  to 
the  great  libraries  established  in  various  cities, 
to  which  the  people  had  access.  These  had 
existed  from  the  earliest  times  in  Babylonia, 
and  undoubtedly  spread  with  the  spread  of 
Babylonian  influence  and  culture. 

Of  legendary  libraries  in  Chaldea,  Berosus 
tells  of  the  antediluvian  city  Pantabibla,  town 
of  Books,  and  Sippara,  also  City  of  the  Sun, 
where  Xisthurus,  the  Chaldean  Noah,  buried 
his  books  before  the  Deluge,  and  from  whence 
they  were  disentombed  after  the  subsidence 
of  the  waters. 

Of  actual  collections,  literary  remains  from 
the  library  of  Erech,  the  most  ancient  of  Chal- 

r 


? 

i 


I 

in 


$2*  l4hE§TATH  ($F$HE^XFHIV»£T  ♦ 


u 


a 


? 

rn? 
HI 


dean  cities,  give  evidence  of  the  antiquity  of 
these  institutions,  as  also  others  from  Cutha, 
L,arsa  and  various  localities. 

The  library  of  Larsa,  or  Senkereh,  was  fam- 
ous for  its  mathematical  works,  and  here  stu- 
dents of  that  science  came  from  all  parts  of  the 
country. 

Some  tablets  from  this  library  are  now  in  the 
British  Museum,  among  which  are  tables  of 
squares,  and  there  are  traces  of  a  Chaldean 
Euclid,  with  geometrical  figures. 

In  Assyria,  the  great  libraries  established  in 
various  cities  were  at  the  expense  of  the  libra- 
ries of  Babylonia.  They  were  founded  by  the 
kings  of  Assyria  who  became  for  the  time 
masters  of  Babylonia. 

For  the  enrichment  of  Assyria,  the  Babylo- 
nian libraries  wrere  despoiled  of  many  treasures 
of  which  such  books  were  selected  and  remov- 
ed as  would  add  to  the  glory  of  Assyria. 

The  books  of  the  Assyrian  libraries  estab- 
lished in  various  cities  consisted  either  of  works 
from  the  older  libraries  or  wTere  copies  of  books 
left  in  their  original  homes. 

The  most  ancient  of  the  Assyrian  libraries 
of  which  we  have  account,  after  that  of  the 
great  Sargon,  of  Agane,  was  that  of  Calah. 
This  city  was  founded  by  Shalmaneser,  about 
1300  B.  C,  but  later  on  was  laid  waste  during 
some  invasions  of  Assyria.     It  was  afterwards 


-wwfW 


$*r1fcHE  [PATH  OF  TQHE.  ALPHABET 


P 


1 

This  /© 


rebuilt   by  Assur-natsi-pal,  king  of   Assyria, 
885  B.  C. 

At  this  restoration  of  Calah,  he  founded  the 
celebrated  library  in  which,  with  other  litera 
ture,  was  deposited  the  great  work  on  astron- 
omy, entitled  the  '  'Observations  of  Bel. 
work  was   first  composed    for  the   library  of  j 
Sargon  at   Agane,  and   throughout  Assyrian}^ 
and  Babylonian  history  had  a  wide  reputation 
It  was  translated  in  later  times  into  Greek  by 
Berosus,  the  Chaldean  historian,  from  many 
copies  of  the  work  made  for  the  great  library 
of  Assur-bani-pal,  at  Kouyunjik.    Many  frag 
meuts  of  these  copies  are  now  in  the  British 
Museum,  but  the  table  of  contents  which  re- 
mains gives  a  good  conception  of  the  subjects 
treated  in  the  original  work. 

Assur-bani-pal  says  of  the  founding  of  his 
royal  library,  that  inspired  by  "Nebo,  the 
prophet  god  of  Literature,"  and  "his  wife 
Tasmit,  the  Bearer,"  he  had  regard  to  the  en 
graved  characters  of  which,  as  much  as  was 
suitable  on  tablets,  he  had  written  and  ex- 
plained and  placed  in  his  library  for  the  in- 
spection of  his  subjects. 

To  this  library,  strangers  from  all  countries 
were  also  admitted,  and  for  their  assistance  in 
the  study  of  literature  and  the  translation  of 
these  documents,  syllabaries  were  prepared  in 
which  the  cuneiform  characters  were  classified 


"m;raEPATH©F,tHE,«XFIIi\BET. 


-  y,?o 


and  arranged.  With  these  were  the  phrase 
books  and  dictionaries  presenting  the  ancient 
Accadian  form  of  the  word  with  its  Assyrian 
equivalent. 

By  these  means  the  modern  student  of  cu- 
neiform has  been  able  to  translate  this  long 
forgotten  language  as  readily  as  the  student  of 
the  period  of  Assur-bani-pal. 

Like  testimony  from  other  localities  is  com- 
ing to  light,  of  the  literary  activity  which  pre- 
vailed for  long  centuries — we  may  say  millen- 
iums — throughout  the  vast  region  affected  by 
Babylonian  influence.  There  were  books  and 
libraries  everywhere,  and  those  who  could  read 
and  write  them. 

The  imperishable  nature  of  these  baked  clay 
records  is  yet  to  furnish  other  and  greater  sur- 
prises. Beneath  the  mounds  which  dot  the 
plains  and  valleys  of  Mesopotamia,  Syria  and 
Palestine,  the  treasures  of  many  ancient  libra- 
ries undoubtedly  still  await  the  spade  of  the 
explorer. 


^?V\i 


<rr 


1 


j' 


-^X^^-- 


jfaflfcHE  FATH^FtJg,Al^HABE^ 


CHAPTER  X. 


CT^HROUGHOUT  the  whole  history  of 
P  oJrA  cuneiform  writing,  with  the  Babylo- 
o      nians  and  Assyrians  it  continued  a 


syllabic  system.  There  was  no  development 
with  them  of  alphabetic  characters. 

The  first  evidences  we  have  as  yet  of  such 
development  through  this  cuneiform  was  at  the 
time  when  the  Medes,  an  Aryan  people  related 
to  the  Persians,  received  from  the  primitive  or 
earlier  inhabitants  of  Media  their  system  of 
writing. 

These  Proto-Medic  tribes  were  a  Turanian 
people  of  Ural-Altaic  stock  speaking  an  agglu- 
tinative language.  Their  system  of  writing 
was  the  cuneiform,  and  had  been  a  develop- 
ment from  the  Semitic  Babylonian  script. 

In  the  adaptations  of  this  to  the  require- 
ments of  an  agglutinative  speech  a  process  of 
simplifying  had  occurred  quite  similar  to  that 
which  the  Japanese  present  upon  the  trans- 
mission to  them  of  the  graphic  system  of  the 
Chinese. 

The  Semitic  Babylonian  system  which  was 
originally  adopted    from  the    cuneiform  of  a 


m$Ji$BE  fATH  tirgm: &xfhrbet 


Turanian  people,  had  developed  a  complicated 
and  cumbrous  method  of  writing,  including 
over  five  hundred  signs.  This  had  arisen  in 
the  attempts  to  adapt  a  syllabary  and  charac- 
ters expressing  an  agglutinative  speech  to  the 
uses  of  a  Semitic  language. 

It  was  from  this  that  the  Persian  cuneiform 
was  derived,  and  in  the  further  simplicity 
which  appeared  in  the  transmission  of  this  to 
an  Aryan  people,  and  its  applications  to  an 
Aryan  speech,  that  we  find  a  development  to- 
wards alphabetism. 

With  the  adoption  of  the  Proto-Medic  cunei- 
form by  the  Medes  and  Persians,  many  of  the 
syllabic  signs,  instead  of  representing  syllables 
came  on  the  acrologic  principle  to  be  used  as 
alphabetic  characters. 

As  certain  of  these  signs  retained  a  syllabic 
character,  the  Persian  cuneiform  was  never  a 
pure  alphabet,  though  far  on  the  way  to  this 
as  early  as  the  period  of  the  Achaemenian 
kings. 

Dr.  Taylor  says  of  this  : 
The  idea  of  alphabetism  may  not  improb- 
ably have  been  suggested  to  the  Persians  by 
their  acquaintance  with  the  Phoenician  alpha- 
bet, which  as  early  as  the  eighth  century  B.C. 
was  used  in  the  valley  of  the  Euphrates  con- 
currently with  cuneiform  writing." 

At  the  date  of  the  Persepolitan  and  Behistun 


^Y**i\ 


*^    «=A2,« 


135 


gfe- 


£ur|fcHE  [PATH  $f$he|ulfhabe: 


p 


^.^^w^ 


S/ 


^x^- 


H'O. 


2ft -^ 


inscriptions,  and  during  the  two  previous  cen- 
turies, the  Aramean  alphabet,  daughter  of  the 
Phoenician,  had  been  a  commercial  script  of 
the  Semitic  people  of  northern  Mesopotamia 
and  Syria. 

At  the  time  of  Darius  it  was  used  at  the 
courts  of  the  Assyrian  kings  in  official  records, 
and  later  on  at  Babylon. 

Again,  upon  the  decline  of  the  Assyrian  and 
Babylonian  empires,  and  with  these  the  deca- 
dence of  the  cuneiform,  this  was  superseded 
by  the  Aramean  alphabet.  Of  this,  however, 
later  on. 

Whatever  influences  the  alphabet  of  Aram 
may  have  had  in  suggesting  the  idea  of  alpha- 


^~J,m  -=?  «fr^#5*)-j^»  betism  to  the  originators  of  the  Persian  cunei- 
iPMtffl  f orm >  the  result  was  original  and  distinct. 

Of  this  Persian  cuneiform,  which  has  fur- 
nished the  key  to  the  decipherment  of  all  cu- 
neiform, the  fullest  vocabulary  has  been  found 
in  the  Behistun  inscriptions. 

The  rock  on  which  these  are  engraved  is 
situated  near  the  western  frontier  of  Persia  on 
the  direct  route  from  Babylon  to  Ecbatana. 
It  rises  an  isolated  mountain  from  the  plain  to 
a  height  of  seventeen  hundred  feet. 

On  one  side  is  a  sheer  wall  of  precipitous 
rock.  At  its  base  is  a  copious  fountain.  On 
one  of  the  great  highways  of  travel,  its  isolated 
position  and  peculiar  features  have  made  this 


'$N  <±HE  f ATH  fa  JHEjPtlfHKBET 


T 

! 

A. 
VY 

I 

TITT 

s 

7 


a  notable  landmark  throughout  the  ages.  At 
the  northern  extremity  of  this  escarpment,  in 
a  recess  to  the  right,  are  the  famous  inscrip- 
tions of  Darius,  son  of  Hystapes.  To  make 
these  inaccessible  to  foreign  invaders  or  domes- 
tic foes,  they  were  placed  about  three  hundred 
feet  above  the  base  of  the  rock. 

Sir  Henry  Rawlinson,  who  first  deciphered 
these  inscriptions,  attempted  the  work  by  the 
aid  of  powerful  field  glasses,  but  later  succeed- 
ed in  obtaining  a  closer  inspection  by  means 
of  ropes  let  down  from  the  cliffs  at  great  ex- 
pense and  at  the  risk  of  his  life. 

The  wonder  is,  how  the  engravers  could  have 
done  the  work.  The  rock  was  beautifully  pol- 
ished before  inscribed,  and  in  some  places 
where  there  were  inequalities  of  surface,  pieces 
of  the  rock  were  fitted  in  and  fastened  with 
molten  lead.  This  was  done  with  such  delicacy 
that  only  by  close  and  careful  scrutiny  can  it 
be  detected. 

After  the  engraving  had  been  completed,  a 
fine  coat  of  silicious  varnish  was  laid  over,  to 
give  clearness  of  outline  to  each  letter,  and  to 
protect  the  surface  against  the  action  of  the 
elements. 

Of  the  inscriptions,  Sir  Henry  Rawlinson 
says  : 

"For  beauty  of  execution,  for  uniformity 
and  correctness,  they  are  unequalled." 


^^w 
^•'•V' 


jrs 


~> 


The  purpose  of  King  Darius  in  these  memo- 
rials was  to  set  forth  to  his  subjects  his  hered- 
itary right  to  the  throne  of  Persia,  and  the 
glories  of  his  reign. 

"lam  Darieiros, ' '  he  says,  '  'the  great  king, 
the  king  of  kings,  the  king  of  Persia,  the  king 
of  nations." 

And  then,  after  giving  the  record  of  his 
genealogy  back  to  Achaemenes,  the  first  of  his 
line,  he  says  :  ''  There  are  eight  of  my  race 
who  have  been  kings  before  me  ;  I  am  the 
ninth.     In  a  double  line  we  have  been  kings. ' ' 

The  inscriptions  consist  of  a  thousand  lines 
in  three  columns  and  in  three  languages  ;  an 
Aryan,  a  Turanian  and  a  Semitic  speech. 

The  first  column,  addressed  to  the  Persian 
people  of  his  realm ,  was  written  in  the  Persian 
cuneiform,  with  thirty-six  alphabetic  signs 
and  but  four  ideograms.  The  second  was  to 
the  Proto-Medic,  or  as  now  called,  Scythic  in- 
habitants of  the  kingdom,  and  was  written  in 
the  Turanian  cuneiform,  with  ninety-six  pure 
syllabic  signs,  accompanied  by  seven  surviving 
ideograms.  The  third  version,  to  the  Assyr- 
ian or  Semitic  subjects  of  the  Persian  king, 
was  inscribed  in  the  Semitic  Babylonian  cunei- 
form, including  five  hundred  characters. 

After  the  discovery  by  Grotefend  of  the  key 
to  the  decipherment  of  the  Persian  cuneiform, 
Sir  Henry  Rawlinson,  an  English  military  offi- 


\ 

i 


TT 

If 


TT 


T 

TTTT 

7 

V. 


t*i  t±HE.£ ATH  #F$HE^tLFHIVBET 


cer  in  the  service  of  the  East  India  Company, 
while  on  duty  in  Persia,  undertook  the  study 
of  cuneiform  characters. 

This  he  attempted  independently,  with  no 
one  to  aid  him,  as  at  this  time  he  was  not  ac- 
quainted with  the  discoveries  of  Grotefend,  or 
the  methods  pursued  by  him. 

The  greater  simplicity  of  the  Persian  versions 
in  the  trilingual  inscriptions,  suggested  less 
difficulties  to  overcome  and  led  him  to  pursue 
the  same  lines  by  which  Grotefend  had  previ- 
ously obtained  success. 

Sir  Henry  Rawlinson  was  able  to  carry  for- 
ward the  decipherment  of  cuneiform  much 
farther  than  Grotefend,  owing  partly  to  the 
better  knowledge  of  the  ancient  languages  of 
Persia  attained  at  this  time,  and  partly  to  the 
fact  that  he  had  escaped  the  mistakes  which 
obstructed  Grotefend  in  his  later  decipherments 
of  cuneiform. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  Grotefend  dis- 
covered the  true  values  of  twelve  of  the  forty- 
eight  letters  of  the  Persian  alphabet.  Further 
than  this  he  did  not  go.  He  made  the  mistake 
of  supposing  all  the  vowel  sounds  were  ex- 
pressed in  this  system,  which  is  not  the  case. 

With  some  of  the  consonants,  the  vowel 
sound  is  inherent  and  is  not  written  with  an 
independent  sign.  This  mistake  prevented  his 
further  progress  ;  but  his  success  had  pointed 


139 


pi$uaz  [path  0T  Jihe^Alpkrbe 


r^^^ 


J- 


l1 


^x^^- 


aJ'.^SSSi^ft 


the  way,  and  a  host  of  eager  and  able  scholars 
at  once  entered  this  new  field  of  oriental  phi- 
lology. 

The  most  promising  direction  seemed  to  be 
the  Zend,  the  so  called  language  in  which  the 
sacred  books  of  the  Parsees  was  written.  Of 
this,  but  one  or  two  fragments  known  to  be 
genuine  were  at  this  time  to  be  found  in  the 
libraries  of  Europe  ;  one  in  the  Bodleian  Li- 
brary, chained  to  the  wall,  and  here  and  there 
a  few  stray  leaves  of  Zend  manuscript  in  other 
collections. 

In  the  year  1771  a  work  had  been  deposited 
by  its  author,  Anquetil  Duperron,  which  he 
claimed  to  be  a  translation  from  the  original 
Zend-Avesta,  with  copy  of  the  texts. 

The  work  had  been  pronounced  a  forgery  by 
certain  distinguished  scholars ;  but  the  well 
known  scholarship  of  its  author  held  the  judg- 
ments of  other  learned  philologists  in  abeyance. 

The  story  of  this  effort  is  of  romantic  inter- 
est. While  a  youth,  preparing  for  priesthood 
in  the  seminaries  of  Paris,  he  became  so  ab- 
sorbed in  the  study  of  language,  that  he  gave 
himself  entirely  to  these  pursuits,  abandoning 
his  intentions  of  the  study  of  theology. 

While  thus  engaged,  some  stray  leaves  of  a 
Zend  manuscript  came  into  his  hands,  which 
so  filled  his  mind  with  a  desire  to  read  the  lan- 
guage of  the  Parsees  that  he  determined  to  do  so. 


I 


'$1*  $BEf *TH  0F^CE^tXFHRBBT*> 


S 


T 
f! 


ft 

| 

f 

in 


At  this  time  the  conflicting  interests  of  the 
English  and  French  in  India  reached  a  crisis. 
Enlisting  as  a  private  soldier  in  the  French 
army,  he  was  about  to  sail  for  India  when  the 
officers  of  the  institute  to  which  he  was  attach- 
ed, affected  by  his  zeal  for  learning,  obtained 
from  the  Minister  of  War  a  free  passage  for 
him  to  Pondicherry,  with  a  seat  during  the 
voyage  at  the  captain's  table  and  a  salary  to  be 
paid  him  on  his  arrival  in  India  while  he  car- 
ried on  his  studies. 

After  reaching  Pondicherry,  he  began  the 
study  of  Sanscrit  and  Arabic,  and  later  on, 
through  great  hardship,  finally  reached  Surat. 

Here  he  obtained  the  confidence  of  certain 
Parsee  priests,  who  permitted  him  access  to 
their  sacred  books,  and  through  whose  assist- 
ance he  acquired  sufficient  knowledge  of  the 
language  in  which  they  were  written,  to  enable 
him  to  translate  the  Zend-Avesta. 

Returning  to  Paris  in  1762,  with  over  a 
hundred  precious  manuscripts,  he  obtained  a 
small  post  in  the  royal  library,  where  he  spent  K^ 
the  next  nine  years  in  the  preparation  of  his 
copies  of  the  original  texts  of  the  Zend-Avesta, 
translating  these  for  publication.  In  1771  the 
work  was  completed  and  he  had  the  satisfac- 
tion of  placing  in  the  Royal  Library  of  Paris 
the  first  authentic  version  of  the  Zend-Avesta 
and  the  first  translation  that  had  ever  appeared 


141 


wm 


pi^HZ  [PATH  ^F^gEglLFHIIBE^ 


in  any  European  language.  As  before  stated, 
many  scholars  of  the  time  were  not  prepared 
for  the  work,  denying  its  authenticity  and  pro- 
claiming it  an  audacious  forgery. 

Under  this  cloud,  the  intrepid  author  of  this 
work,  conscious  of  the  importance  of  his  con- 
tribution to  learning,  undaunted  by  the  fate 
which  so  long  delayed  the  just  recognition  of 
his  labors,  passed  the  remainder  of  his  days  in 
cheerful  resignation. 

He  lived  to  congratulate  Grotefend  upon  his 
achievements  in  the  decipherment  of  cuneiform 
and  died  shortly  after,  in  1808,  at  the  advanc- 
ed age  of  seventy-seven. 

Twenty  years  later,  the  honors  due  his  name 
came  through  the  researches  of  the  illustrious 
scholars,  Rask  and  Burnouf,  who  proved  this 
great  work  of  Anquetil  Duperron  to  be  a  gen- 
uine if  not  correct  translation  of  the  Zend- 
Avesta,  as  obtained  through  the  sacred  books 
of  the  Parsees. 

It  was  by  a  study  of  this  translation  that  the 
key  to  the  ancient  Persian  language  was  ob- 
tained and  has  since  served  an  important  use 
in  the  study  of  Zend*  philology. 

Notwithstanding  its  value,  this  translation 


•  This  use  of  the  word  Zend  is  incorrect  as  refer- 
ring to  the  language  in  which  the  works  of  Zoroaster 
appear.      There  is  no  Zend  language. 


*IK  Jhe  f ath  £>f  Jhe ^llfhkbet 


s 


of  the  Zend-Avesta  was  by  no  means  perfect. 
The  faulty  teachings  of  the  Parsi  priests  led 
the  author  into  occasional  errors  which  ob- 
structed the  progress  of  later  scholars  who  de- 
pended too  closely  upon  it  for  results.  Little 
by  little,  however,  from  the  work  of  Sir  Henry 
Rawlinson  on  the  Behistun  inscriptions,  thro' 
the  researches  of  Burnouf  in  the  original  Zend 
manuscripts  ;  again  from  testimony  furnished 
by  other  distinguished  scholars,  from  coins 
and  other  inscriptions,  and  still  again  by  a 
comparative  study  of  Sanscrit,  modern  Persian 
and  Arabic,  all  the  letters  of  the  old  Persian 
cuneiform  have  been  obtained,  until  now  it  is 
as  easily  and  distinctly  read  as  Greek  or  He- 
brew. 

It  is  impossible,  within  these  limits,  to  fol- 
low the  steps  by  which  these  important  results 
were  obtained.  The  methods  employed  in 
such  researches  are  often  only  intelligible  to 
philologists  themselves. 

In  this  special  study,  the  epigraphic  materi- 
als examined  included  not  only  cuneiform 
signs,  but  characters  representing  the  fully 
developed  alphabets  of  later  periods,  alphabets 
which  had  superseded  the  cuneiform  as  sys- 
tems of  writing,  though  expressing  the  ancient 
speech  of  Persia. 

The  most  ancient  copies  of  the  Zend-Avesta 
are  only  to  be  found  in  Pehlivi  characters,  a 


~P  fir   r\   SS-%1 


$*T  ±HZ  JATH  0f  jke^ulfhrbe 


?T 


^m^ 


•**v 


Persian  alphabetic  system  of  the  Sassanian  pe- 
riod, dating  from  the  3d  century  A.  D. 

The  Pehlivi  alphabets  are  direct  descendants 
of  the  Aramean  alphabet,  a  daughter  of  the 
older  Phoenician,  which  had  developed  in  the 
highlands  of  Aram,  or  Upper  Mesopotamia, 
before  the  Achamenian  period  in  Persia. 

The  Aramean  language  originally  expressed 
by  these  characters,  was  at  this  time  one  of  the 
most  widely  spoken  of  the  Semitic  dialects,  in- 
cluding the  idioms  of  Syria,  Aram  and  Assyria. 

At  first,  as  a  commercial  and  literary  script, 
it  came  to  be  extensively  used  in  these  and  ad- 
jacent countries  conjointly  with  the  cuneiform. 

In  the  ruins  of  ancient  Nineveh,  there  are 
the  remains  of  what  must  have  been  a  public 
registry  office.  From  this  a  great  number  of 
terra  cotta  tablets  have  been  exhumed  on  which 
were  inscribed  in  cuneiform  characters  records 
of  legal  contracts,  including  loans  of  money, 
sales  of  estates  and  exchanges  of  other  proper- 
ties. Many  of  these  tablets  were  docketed  on 
the  sides  or  edges  in  Aramean  or  Phoenician 
letters,  by  which  the  subject  of  each  document 
could  be  readily  found  when  piled  on  the 
shelves  or  in  recesses  where  they  were  depos- 
ited. Reference  in  some  of  these  appears  from 
the  time  of  Tiglath  Pileser  and  Sennacherib, 
741  to  681  B.  C. 

Other  evidences  of  the  extensive  use  of  this 


1  |s•yDV«§,,' 

ITT" 


MfflT 


|lV;XIIEfATH<gF$m£U*H2\BET» 


ir 

f 

! 


TT 


I 

■9 

T 


script  comes  from  the  later  Assyrian  kings, 
and  from  Babylonia,  until  the  decline  of  these 
empires,  606  to  538  B.  C. 

After  the  conquests  of  Babylonia  by  the  Per- 
sians, the  Aramean  alphabet  gradually  became 
the  official  script  of  these  regions,  finally  sup- 
planting the  cuneiform. 

Of  historic  documents  of  this  period  in  the 
Aramean  script  and  language  was  the  royal 
decree  given  by  Artaxerxes  to  Ezra  for  the 
rebuilding  of  the  temple  at  Jerusalem. 

The  Aramean  was  the  language  spoken  at 
this  time  by  all  the  Semitic  people  of  Babylonia. 

It  is  probable  that  during  the  whole  period 
of  the  Achsemenids  a  local  variety  of  the  Ara- 
mean alphabet  was  in  general  use  as  a  cursive 
script  throughout  the  empire. 

The  perishable  materials  used  for  this  pur- 
pose, as  the  bark  of  trees,  skins,  papyrus,  un- 
baked clay,  etc.,  have  furnished  but  few  re- 
mains of  this  form  of  writing,  but  that  it  ex- 
isted and  was  in  extensive  use  at  this  date, 
there  are  unmistakeable  evidences. 

It  is  not  impossible  that  the  works  of  Zoro- 
aster may  have  been  so  written  in  the  old 
Bactrian,  as  Darius  Hystaspes  states  in  the 
Median  text  of  the  Behistun  inscription,  that 
he  has  made  a  book  in  the  Aryan  language 
which  before  him  did  not  exist. 

"  The  text  of  the  divine  law  (Avesta) — the 


V 


pit&S.  r?ATH^)F,tHE|UJHWBET^ 


r-^%W 


•  •  «-t 


V 


$'\. 


'->- 


^X^r^-. 


««W-«SJ 


prayer  and  the  translation."  "And  then  this 
ancient  book  was  restored  by  me  in  all  nations 
and  the  nations  followed  it." 

The  inscription  of  King  Asoka,  at  Kapur 
di  giri  on  the  northern  and  western  confines 
of  India,  is  evidently  a  survival  of  this  ancient 
script. 

About  500  B.  C,  the  Punjaub  was  invaded 
by  the  Persians  under  Darius,  and  during  the 
remaining  period  of  the  Achaemenian  kings 
continued  a  satrapy  of  Persia.  After  the  con- 
quests of  Alexander,  and  later,  of  the  decline 
of  Greek  rule,  this  province  was  restored  to 
India.  About  251  B.  C,  Asoka,  then  king  of 
India,  an  earnest  and  devout  believer  in  Bud- 
dha, ordered  certain  edicts  to  be  inscribed  in 
various  parts  of  his  empire.  These  are  known 
as  the  fourteen  edicts  of  Asoka. 

The  type  of  the  alphabetic  character  em- 
ployed in  the  various  localities  differs.  Those 
used  at  Kapur  di  giri  are  in  a  cursive  script 
from  the  Aramean,  and  are  often  designated 
"  the  Bactrian  alphabet,"  from  its  close  rela- 
tionship to  these  early  Iranian  forms. 

Of  this,  Dr.  Taylor  says  : 
1  The  Kapur  di  giri  record  must  be  regard- 
ed as  an  isolated  monument  of  a  great  Bactrian 
alphabet,  in  which  the  Zoroasterian  books  and 
an  extensive  literature  were  in  all  probability 
conserved . ' ' 


if™       ™r — 


IjJT  $HE  fATH  (^f^heJllfhjveet  • 


CHAPTER  XI. 

VTp^OR  monumental  purposes,  the  Persian 


Si 


Jj  |qJ  cuneiform  remained  the  official  script 
vc/j}^  of  the  empire  conjointly  with  the  Se- 
mitic Scythian  cuneiform  until  the  conquest 
of  Persia  by  Alexander  the  Great,  about  334 
B.  C,  with  which  the  period  of  the  Achge- 
menids  closed. 

Immediately  following  this,  the  use  of  the 
Greek  alphabet  appears  on  coins  and  inscrip- 
tions, and  this  continued  during  the  Greek 
domination  in  Persia  under  the  successors  of 
Alexander. 

The  early  Arsacids,  the  Parthian  kings  who 
brought  an  end  to  the  rule  of  the  Greeks  in 
Persia,  used  also  for  a  time  the  Greek  alpha- 
bet for  monumental  records  and  numismatic 
legends. 

This,  however,  only  lasted  for  a  brief  period, 
for  a  little  later  on  we  find  that  the  Greek  let- 
ters have  given  way  to  a  variety  of  the  Ara- 
mean  alphabet,  which  evidently  had  been  in 
general  use  for  a  long  period  as  a  cursive  script. 

This  special  variety  of  the  Aramean  belongs 
to  a  group  of  alphabets  known  as  Pehlevi,  and 


tfl~fr  - 


pT^HE  tPATH  OF  £Hr  AlFHABE 


3T 


C^^fe* 


is  the  oldest  of  the  group.  The  name  Pehlevi 
is  derived  from  the  word  Parthivi,  signifying 
Parthian.  It  continued,  however,  to  be  ap- 
plied not  only  to  the  alphabet  which  first  ap- 
pears in  the  early  period  of  Parthian  domina- 
tion in  Persia,  but  also  to  the  later  forms  that 
developed  under  the  Sassanian  kings  who  suc- 
ceeded the  Arsacids,  or  Parthian  kings. 

The  so  called  Zend  alphabet  was  the  latest 
of  the  Pehlevi,  and  appears  during  the  later 
years  of  the  Sassanian  empire.  Although  the 
latest  development  of  the  Persian  scripts,  the 
Zend  alphabet  represents  the  most  ancient  form 
of  Persian  speech. 

It  was  in  these  characters  that  some  time 
during  the  Sassanian  dynasty  the  Zend-Avesta, 
or  sacred  books  of  the  Persians,  were  trans- 
cribed in  the  ancient  speech  of  their  origin, 
which  have  thus  been  preserved  to  the  present 
day  by  the  surviving  representatives  of  this 
ancient  faith. 

The  language  expressed  in  the  Gathas,  or 
hymns,  the  most  archaic  portions  of  the  Avesta, 
is  in  the  ancient  vernacular  of  eastern  Persia; 
sometimes  called  "Old  Bactrian,"  and  is  the 
most  archaic  of  Iranian  dialects. 

This  was  apparent  when  Sanskrit  became 
known  to  European  scholars. 

The  striking  resemblance  of  the  Gathas  to 
the  older  Sanskrit  of  the  "Vedic  Hymns,"  in- 


|siV»Vi.Jj»ATWew* 

ml    W 


$N  $BBf ATH  <f>F  JHE^XFHABET^ 


T 
fT 


5 


T 

n? 

in 


dicated  a  close  relationship.  They  seemed, 
indeed,  like  two  dialects  of  the  same  speech. 
In  fact,  the  readiness  with  which  this  old  Per- 
sian was  converted  into  pure  Sanskrit  by  a  few 
slight  phonetic  changes,  verified  these  indica- 
tions. 

In  the  further  comparative  study  of  the  older 
Sanskrit  with  this  older  Persian,  it  was  found 
that  while  the  Sanskrit  may  be  regarded  as  the 
older  brother  of  the  Aryan  group,  this  ancient 
Persian  is  in  some  respects  more  archaic. 

It  nevertheless  remains  that  the  Sanskrit  is 
in  the  main  the  elder  representative  of  this 
family  of  languages,  retaining  the  characteris- 
tic forms  of  phonetic  structure  once  common 
to  the  whole  family,  with  their  meanings  less 
changed,  than  any  other  branch  of  the  Aryan 
group. 

It  is  this  fact  which  enabled  philologists  to 
base  a  science  of  Aryan  philology  upon  the 
Sanskrit.  And  not  only  this,  but  from  which 
has  arisen  the  science  of  comparative  philolo- 
gy for  all  families  of  languages. 

Whatever  may  be  said  of  the  ethnic  affinities 
of  the  Aryans,  or  their  primitive  home,  this 
much  has  been  made  evident  in  the  compara- 
tive study  of  the  Vedas  and  the  Avesta  ;  that 
there  is  close  kinship  here. 

They  tell  of  a  time  not  so  remote  in  history 
as  that  of  older  Chaldea  or  Egypt,  when  these 


tcT 


r 


'^<^- 


P*$RZ  f  A.TH(<)F  3JEg^gjgHABE% 


Indo- Iranians  were  one  people,  with  a  common 
ancestry,  inhabiting  the  same  country,  speak- 
ing the  same  language,  with  the  same  social 
institutions  and  the  same  beliefs.  They  indi- 
cate that  the  home  of  these  Indo-Iranians, 
before  their  separation,  was  somewhere  near 
the  head  waters  of  theOxus,  to  the  north-west 
of  the  Hindu-Kush.  That  finally  there  was  a 
separation  of  these  families,  those  afterwards 
known  as  the  Hindus  penetrating  these  great 
mountain  passes  into  the  Punjaub,  ' '  The  land 
of  the  Five  Rivers,"  in  the  northwestern  part 
of  India,  from  whence  they  spread  southward 
over  this  great  peninsula. 

The  other  branch,  the  Iranians,  remained 
for  a  time  north  of  the  Hindu-Kush  in  Bactria, 
which  formed  later  on  a  part  of  the  ancient 
empire  of  Iran,  or  Persia,  on  the  northeast. 

This  country  was  situated  in  an  upper  valley 
of  the  Oxus,  formed  by  the  Hissar  mountains 
on  the  north,  and  at  the  south  the  Hindu-Kush, 
extending  from  the  Pamir  plateau  on  the  east 
to  the  great  desert  of  Chorasmin  on  the  west, 
a  fruitful  valley,  well  watered,  affording  on 
the  hill  slopes  of  the  southern  range  favora- 
ble pasturage  for  flocks  and  herds. 

From  this  region  the  Iranian  branch  finally 
spread  westward  and  southerly  throughout  the 
lands  later  known  as  Iran  or  Persia. 

It  has  been  suggested  that  the  separation  of 


)tX  $HE$ ATH  #7$HE^LLFHRB£T  *>-  s 


the  Indo-Iranians  was  the  result  of  religious 
differences.  The  schism  indicated  in  the  Rig 
Vedas  and  Avesta  seems  to  have  grown  out  of 
the  distinction  which  finally  arose  between  the 
signification  of  the  words  "  Asura"  or  "Ahu- 
ra,"  as  applied  to  Deity. 

The  earlier  faith  of  these  people  seems  to 
have  been  a  pure  nature  worship,  the  sun,  the 
sky,  light,  fire,  the  elements,  throughout  which 
appears  also  a  spiritual  conception  of  a  Su- 
preme Being,  Lord  of  the  Sky,  the  Sun,  Crea- 
tor of  all  things,  who  was  known  as  "Asura," 
or  "Ahura."  The  most  ancient  signification 
of  this  word  is  "  The  Broad  and  Enfolding," 
its  earliest  application  as  Lord  of  the  Sky,  is, 
perhaps,  a  reminiscence  of  that  remote  period 
in  the  history  of  these  people  when  they  roam- 
ed the  vast  steppes  of  northern  central  Asia. 

In  the  spiritual  conception  which  grew  from 
this,  Asura  became  the  Lord  of  the  Broad 
Heavens,  the  God  of  Light,  the  Infinite. 

The  word  Deva,  from  the  Sanskrit  Div,  sig- 
nified "  brilliant,"  "  shining."  In  its  spirit- 
ual sense,  the  "  Shining  Ones"  applied  orig- 
inally to  the  ministering  spirits,  the  bright 
messengers  of  Asura.  From  the  word  Deva, 
we  have  the  word  Deus,  God  ;  Divus,  divine  ; 
daemons,  and  other  similar  forms  in  various 
branches  of  Aryan  speech. 

At  first,  Asura  is  the  most  sacred  name  used 


V 


T^ 


!for$2IE  &JITH  $F$H£^LFHRBE% 


Jf. 


«■ «  -  V 


for  Deity.  -  Later  on,  with  the  increase  of  gods 
in  the  Hindu  pantheon,  the  term  Asura  is  con- 
ferred as  a  highest  dignity  upon  the  greater 
gods,  as  Asura- Varuna,  Asura-Indra. 

There  came  a  time,  however,  as  appears  in 
the  Vedas,  when  the  Asuras  signified  a  class 
of  spirits  inferior  to  the  Devas,  and  finally  as 
spirits  opposed  to  the  gods.  As  the  Asuras 
were  degraded,  the  Devas  were  exalted.  With 
the  Iranian  branch,  there  was  no  such  change. 
The  ancient  "Asura,"  in  Persian,  "Ahura," 
remained  from  first  to  last  their  great  divine 
One  ;  nor  throughout  the  whole  history  of 
Persian  mythology  are  there  ' '  any  gods  be- 
fore "  him.  The  word  Daevas,  with  them 
came  to  signify  evil  spirits — devils. 

That  a  schism  arose,  is  apparent  ;  and  also 
that  it  was  local.  "  Hard  by  the  believers  in 
Ahura,"  says  Zoroaster,  "  dwell  the  worship- 
pers of  the  daevas." 

Such  were  the  conditions  when  the  great 
prophet  and  sage  appears  upon  the  scene,  not 
as  the  apostle  of  a  new  religion;  but  as  a  teacher 
of  the  higher  meanings  of  their  ancient  faith. 

As  priest  and  leader  of  the  believers  in  Ahura 
he  strikes  at  once  at  the  root  of  the  dissension. 
The  worshippers  of  the  daevas  are  blind  fol- 
lowers of  the  Evil  One,  who  seek  the  souls  of 
men  to  destroy  them. 

The  Hindus  developed  into  gross  polytheism. 
— _ __ — |  


NsioeM  ^f 

rfmf 


ATHENS 


€ 


! 
IT 

[f 


TT 


f 

in 


The  Iranians  grew  into  a  monotheism,"  at 
once  all  comprehending  and  simple  ;  a  philos- 
ophy profound,  and  yet  without  dogma  ;  a 
system  of  morality  noble  and  true,  which  has 
compelled  the  admiration  of  the  wise  and  spir- 
itual of  all  ages. 

This  was  the  work  of  Zara-thustra,  or  Zoro- 
aster. He  pointed  to  the  existence  in  all  na- 
ture of  two  principles — Good  and  Evil.  These 
were  the  offices  of  Ahura-Mazda,  the  all  good, 
and  Angro-Mainyash,  the  all  evil. 

In  the  regions  of  Light,  the  abode  of  Ahura- 
Mazda,  there  could  be  no  contact  between 
Ahura-Mazda  and  the  Spirit  of  Evil  and  of 
Outer  Darkness. 

In  his  wisdom,  Ahura-Mazda,  the  Creator, 
brought  man  into  existence,  forming  the  earth 
for  his  abode.  He  endowed  man  also  with  in- 
telligence to  perceive,  and  freedom  to  choose 
between  good  and  evil,  so  far  as  his  immediate 
actions  were  concerned.  As  a  natural  conse- 
quence, the  earth  became  the  arena  of  conflict 
between  the  powers  of  Good  and  Evil.  The 
object  of  both  was  the  souls  of  men. 

Over  those  who  chose  purity  of  life,  who  were 
pure  and  noble  in  all  their  dealings  with  others, 
were  just  and  merciful,  over  these,  Ahriman, 
the  Evil  Spirit,  could  obtain  no  mastery. 

To  the  man  impure  in  thought  and  action, 
unjust,  dishonest   and   cruel,    the   great  god 


^.P1-,: 


ptltaz  ^PATH  OF  tHE^JPU^HRBE 


fr 


^X^r^. 


Ahura-Mazda  could  not  extend  his  protection, 
and  except  through  earnest  and  honest  repent- 
ance his  soul  was  doomed  in  the  life  to  come 
to  the  service  of  the  Evil  One  and  to  final  de- 
struction. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  man  who  followed 
the  leadings  of  the  God  of  Goodness  and  Wis- 
dom, was  assured  that  at  his  death  his  soul 
passed  to  a  state  of  eternal  blessedness. 

These  ' '  sweet  and  reasonable  doctrines  ' ' 
included  no  taint  of  fanaticism.  While  per- 
vaded by  the  spirit  of  their  founder,  they  were 
never  urged  at  the  point  of  the  sword. 

In  the  30th  chapter  of  the  Yasna,  in  which 
is  preserved  the  celebrated  speech  of  Zoroaster 
to  Vistacpe  and  his  court,  it  is  distinctly  stated 
that  the  great  prophet  relied  solely  upon  per- 
suasion and  argument. 

In  the  account  given  by  Firdusi  of  this  oc- 
casion, Zoroaster  is  quoted  as  saying  :  ' ' Learn, 
O  King,  the  rites  and  doctrines  of  the  religion 
of  excellence  ;  for  without  religion  there  can- 
not be  any  worth  in  a  king."  "When  the 
mighty  monarch  heard  him  speak  of  the  excel- 
lent religion,  he  accepted  from  him  the  rights 
and  doctrines." 

The  date  of  Zoroaster  is  uncertain.  Various 
authors  assign  him  to  different  periods,  from 
2500  to  1000  B.  C;  while  others  refer  him  to 
still  remoter  dates. 


154—. 


!».?/..  J  *"«« 


!«T  ,±HE  PATH  (OFSpaEjfcrPHABET, 


f 

11 

T 
TT 


TT 

I 

f 

fa 

T 


! 


Anquetil  Duperron  places  him  in  the  time 
of  Hystaspes,  father  of  Darius;  and  Bunsen  at 
2500  B.C.;  but  scholars  generally  agree  upon 
the  period  between  1400  to  1000  B.C. 

At  the  date  of  Darius,  521  B.  C,  Zoroastri- 
anism  was  the  national  religion  of  the  Persians. 
In  one  of  the  inscriptions  of  Darius,  we  find 
this  reference  : 

Mazda,  who  created  this  earth  and  that 
heaven,  who  created  man  and  man's  dwelling 
place,  who  made  Darius  king,  the  one  and  only 
king  of  many." 

This  and  other  references  in  the  inscriptions   I 
indicate  the  time  of  Zoroaster   as  before   the 
date  of  Darius. 

Ancient  Persian  traditions  represent  Zoro- 
aster as  a  native  of  Bactria,  and  that  the  im- 
portant address  to  king  Vistacpi  and  his  court 
was  delivered  in  the  ancient  city  of  Balkh. 

Dr.  Bunsen  says  of  Zoroaster's  conception, 
that  ! '  it  was  not  less  grand  than  that  of  Abra- 
ham; but  that  the  distinctive  difference  lay  in 
these  facts;  Zoroaster  attempted  a  conciliatory 
compromise  between  his  stern  antagonism  to 
nature  worship,  and  the  retention  of  the  an- 
cient rites  and  symbols  of  such  worship. 

Abraham,  on  the  other  hand,  excinded  na- 
ture worship  altogether,  and  sought  to  banish 
it  as  utterly  as  possible  from  his  religiously 
segregated  society,     "in  this, ' '  he  urges,  ' 'the 


t^Vfc 


pipaZ  PATH  ^F$HE^IXHABE% 


^^Z&m 


^q^- 


Hebrew  man  of  God  stands  above  the  Aryan." 

From  happy  Bactria,  this  religion  of  "ex- 
cellence ' '  spread  among  the  numerous  tribes 
of  Iranians  into  all  Persia,  finally  becoming 
the  state  religion.  This  was  also  known  from 
its  earliest  to  its  latest  history,  as  the  M  Book 
Religion." 

According  to  Parsee  tradition,  Zoroaster  was 
the  author  of  the  A  vesta,  which,  when  first 
written,  consisted  of  twenty-one  nosks  or  parts. 

It  is  also  stated  that  this  book  was  in  a  form 
of  writing  invented  by  Zoroaster,  and  which 
the  Maga,  or  priests  of  this  cult  called  the 
11  writing  of  religion." 

It  was  written  on  twelve  thousand  cow-hides, 
in  ink  of  gold  and  the  work  was  bound  togeth- 
er by  golden  bands. 

Various  Greek  writers,  who  followed  the 
wake  of  Alexander's  conquests  in  Persia,  claim 
to  have  seen  the  original,  which  was  preserved 
in  the  archives  of  Persepolis. 

Traditional  accounts  state  that  there  were 
two  copies  of  this  work,  one  of  which  was  de- 
stroyed in  the  palace  of  Persepolis,  which  was 
burned  by  order  of  Alexander,  and  the  other 
was  destroyed  by  the  Greeks  in  some  other 
way. 

There  were  also  copies  of  the  various  nosks 
or  parts  in  the  hands  of  the  priesthood,  which 
thus  escaped  destruction. 


\ 


m$N  $BE$ ATH  $F$HE^ULFHAB£T  • 


T 
T? 


TT 


in? 

7 


After  the  death  of  Alexander,  the  Zoroastri- 
an  priests  gathered  the  remaining  fragments, 
putting  these  into  book  form. 

Five  hundred  years  later,  at  the  close  of  the 
Parthian  dynasty  in  Persia,  another  collection 
of  the  Avesta  fragments,  both  oral  and  writ- 
ten, was  instituted,  at  the  command  and  under 
the  patronage  of  King  Vologases,  the  last  of 
the  Arascids,  about  A.  D.  225. 

The  work  of  editing  and  revising  these  col- 
lections was  continued  under  the  early  Sassa- 
nian  kings,  with  whom  the  ancient  nationality 
again  became  ascendant,  and  with  this,  the 
ancient  Persian  religion  and  its  literature. 

The  new  Avesta  thus  produced  was  pro- 
claimed canonical. 

Under  the  later  Sassanian  kings,  the  Avesta 
was  transcribed  in  the  later  Pehlevi  or  Parsee 
script,  in  which  form  it  has  survived  to  the 
present  day.  Of  this,  however,  but  a  portion 
remains.  The  Sassanian  dynasty  ended  with 
the  conquest  of  Persia  by  the  Mohammedan 
Arabs  in  641  A.  D. 

In  the  fury  of  persecution  which  broke  over 
all  Iran  at  this  time,  Zoroastrianism  as  a  na- 
tional faith  was  crushed,  and  the  sacred  liter- 
ature of  Persia  was  again  scattered  abroad  by 
the  devastating  influences  of  war  and  fanati- 
cism. To  the  religion  of  Zoroaster  that  of 
Mohammed  succeeded,  the  Avesta  was  replac- 


157 


jfonfcHE  ^aTH0F^g^ULXHKBE% 


c^&s* 


ed  by  the  Koran,  and  the  Arabian  alphabet 
supplanted-the  Persian  as  a  national  script  and 
has  so  remained  to  the  present. 

The  ancient  national  life  of  Persia  was  not 
crushed  out  at  once,  but  continued  a  vigorous 
though  ineffectual  resistance  for  centuries. 

During  these  troublous  times,  probably  about 
the  ninth  century  A.  D.,  a  colony  of  Persians 
who  held  fast  to  their  ancient  faith,  fled  from 
their  country,  and  after  many  years  wander- 
ings, finally  established  themselves  on  the 
western  coast  of  India,  from  Bombay  to  Surat. 
They  brought  with  them  the  remains  of  their 
sacred  literature,  to  which  other  missing  por- 
tions were  added  from  time  to  time,  as  they 
could  obtain  them  from  their  brethren  in  the 
faith  who  remained  in  Persia,  chiefly  at  Ker- 
man  and  Yezd. 

They  adopted  the  language  of  the  Hindus 
among  whom  they  settled,  but  steadfastly 
maintained  their  religion  and  customs. 

It  is  from  the  descendants  of  these  refugees 
— the  Parsees  of  India— that  the  ancient  sacred 
books  of  Persia  have  come  into  our  hands. 

The  Avesta  as  it  now  exists,  consists  of  four* 
parts,  the  Yasna,  the  Visparad,  the  Vendidad 
and  the  Kordash,  or  Little  Avesta.     Each  of 


*  Some  authorities  divide  the  Avesta  in  three  parts, 
in  which  the  Visparad  is  included  with  the  Yasna  as 
an  appendix. 


B 


T 
n? 

in 


[hi 


these  parts  are  remainders  of  the  older  collec- 
tion and  are  of  different  dates. 

The  Yasna,  a  collection  of  hymns  and  pray- 
ers for  divine  service,  includes  the  "  Gathas," 
the  most  ancient  and  sacred  portion  of  the 
Avesta.  These  are  evidently  what  they  claim- 
ed to  be — the  work  of  Zoroaster.  The  lan- 
guage in  which  they  are  composed  is  as  old,  if 
not  more  ancient  than  the  Sanskrit  of  the  old- 
est Vedas. 

The  allusion  to  these  hymns  throughout  the 
various  parts  of  the  Avesta,  shows  them  to 
have  been  in  existence  long  before  all  other 
portions  of  these  collections  were  written. 

Again,  to  all  to  whom  Zoroaster  is  a  living 
personality,  the  internal  evidences  of  these  ut- 
terances point  distinctly  to  him  as  their  author. 
Claiming  no  higher  distinction  than  a  teacher 
and  preacher  among  his  people,  there  could 
have  been  no  time  in  the  history  of  the  religion 
of  which  he  was  the  founder,  than  during  his 
own  life  and  work  in  which  they  could  have 
had  their  origin. 

These  devout  pleadings  with  the  Divine  for 
his  people,  that  he  and  they  might  be  led  aright, 
does  not  savour  of  the  higher  spiritual  digni- 
ties accorded  to  Zoroaster  in  later  times. 

The  following  quotation  from  the  Gathas 
expresses  very  clearly  the  devout  and  reverent 
attitude  of  the  author  : 


159 


RETUP 


USE 


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